Yale Center for British Art

Creator:
Willem van de Velde the Elder, ca. 1611–1693, Dutch, active in Britain (from 1672)
Title:
Ships and Militia by a Rocky Shore
Date:
ca. 1680
Materials & Techniques:
Pen and ink on prepared canvas
Dimensions:
25 5/8 x 38 7/16 inches (65.1 x 97.6 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Label on verso, upper right: “L 278729 | [logo] | 17”; lower left: “Owner | Mellon, Mr. Paul | Artist Velde, Willem van de Velde | The Elder | Title A Mediterranean Shipping | Scene | National Gallery of Art PM 6634”
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1976.7.78
Classification:
Paintings
Collection:
Paintings and Sculpture
Subject Terms:
geology | science | expedition | soldiers | men | tower (building division) | cliff | sea | promontory | bridge (built work) | fort | castle | boats | ships | men-of-war | rowboats | galleys (watercraft) | marine art | militia | rocks (landforms)
Associated Places:
Mediterranean Sea
Currently On View:
Not on view
Exhibition History:
Pearls to Pyramids: British Visual Culture and the Levant, 1600–1830 (Yale Center for British Art, 2008-02-07 - 2008-04-28)

Behold the Sea (Yale Center for British Art, 2003-06-14 - 2003-09-07)
Publications:
Malcolm Cormack, Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1985, pp. 230-231, N590.2 .A83 (YCBA)

Pearls to pyramids : British visual culture and the Levant, 1600-1830 [wall labels], Yale Center for British Art, 2008, pp. 6-7, V 2576 (YCBA)

Pearls to pyramids : British visual culture and the Levant, 1600-1830, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2008, pp. 8, 14, V1880

Michael Strang Robinson, Van de Velde: A Catalogue of the Paintings of the Elder and the Younger Willem Van de Velde, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, 1990, pp. 80-81, no. 69, NJ18 V574 A12 +R62 1990 v.1-2 (YCBA)

Sotheby's sale catalogue : Catalogue of Important Old Master Paintings : 3 December 1969, Sotheby's, London, December 3, 1969, pp. 20-21, lot 21, Auction Catalogues (YCBA)
Gallery Label:
William van de Velde came to London in 1672 at the invitation of Charles II, who granted him a pension and a studio at Greenwich. There he established the taste for marine paintings, including battle pictures representing the Anglo-Dutch naval wars of the 1660s and early 1670s, many of which Van de Velde witnessed at first hand. This grisaille panel is an example of a penschilder, a painting made with brush and pen to imitate engraving. The scene itself is imaginary, showing a combined force of English and Italian ships off the North African coast. But the Barbary pirates on this coast were very real and harassed ships in the Mediterranean, selling captives into slavery in the Ottoman Empire. The British navy mounted offensive operations against the pirates in the 1670s, forcing the Barbary states to sue for peace, which protected British shipping but allowed the pirates to continue their operations against Britain’s commercial rivals.\n\n Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:311