Ships and Militia by a Rocky Shore

Willem van de Velde the Elder, ca. 1611–1693

ca. 1680

Pen and ink on prepared canvas

Yale Center for British Art

A fleet of sailing ships is anchored offshore near a rocky coastline with a castle ruin on a cliff. Small boats with many figures are in the water near the shore. 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 Medite