Willem van de Velde the Elder

Beach and van Ghent drove ashore and burnt six Algerine corsairs.  This is one of several finished drawings of various stages in the action.  A painting at Buckingham Palace shows the end of the action. 

Joseph van Haecken (L.2516)

M.S. Robinson, A Catalogue of the drawings in the National Maritime Museum made by the Elder and the Younger Willem van de Velde, Cambridge 1958, vol. I, p. 132, under no. 531;
idem., The Paintings of the Willem van de Veldes, 2 vols., Greenwich 1990, vol. I, p. 162

Laid down on paper. The work is made up of two joined sheets which meet vertically at the centre of the composition. There are five additional old fold lines running vertically down the width of the sheet. The paper has discolored somewhat and there are areas of light brown staining throughout. There are three old repaired tears to the upper, right and left edges and small areas of the upper left and right corners have been made up. The medium is still reasonably fresh throughout.
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As the detailed inscription indicates, this drawing shows one of the most exotic naval actions that Van de Velde depicted -- and one that he surely did not, for once, witness at first hand from his own little galjoot. The battle took place on 17/27 August 1670, when Commodore Richard Beach, second in command of the English navy in the Mediterranean, co-operated with the Dutch Admiral Willem Joseph van Ghent to drive ashore six Algerine corsairs, near Cape Spartel, which lies on the Tunisian coast close to the Straits of Gibraltar.  Four other drawings showing different moments in the engagement are at Greenwich,¹ and a painting of the end of the action is in the Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace.²

This interesting drawing stands apart from the other Northumberland Van de Veldes in two main respects, one historical and one stylistic.  First, it is the only drawing in the group that can be securely traced to an earlier collection, that of Joseph van Haecken, an Antwerp-born painter who lived most of his life in England.  Van Haecken died in 1749 and his collection was sold at auction in 1758, which fits perfectly well with the theory that the Van de Veldes were acquired not too long after that date by the 1st Duchess of Northumberland. 

Stylistically, the salient qualities of this sheet are that it is rather highly finished and precisely executed, and that the action is seen from a higher viewpoint than in most of the artist's drawings.  The exceptions are several drawings that were made as designs for tapestries -- a relatively unknown aspect of Van de Velde's work -- such as the three remarkable drawings showing different moments in the Battle of Lowestoft, which were sold in 2006 as part of the major group of Van de Veldes that came to auction from the Estate of John Pierpont Morgan, 2nd.³   

1.  Robinson, op. cit., 1958, p. 132, nos. 531-533, vol. II, Cambridge 1974, p. 72, no. 1189
2.  Inv. 1490; Robinson, op. cit., 1990, pp. 162-3
3.  Sale, New York, Sotheby's, 25 January 2006, lots 17-19