Lot 1164 Dα

The composition, style and broad format of this drawing are all typical of the work of Willem van de Velde the Younger. The monogram with an extra “J” for junior provides a further clue as to the author. During the so-called “Rampjaar”, the catastrophic year 1672 which began with the start of the third Anglo-Dutch war and ended with the decline of the Dutch Golden Age, the van de Velde family left their homeland to begin a new and successful life in London. Father and son instigated a new manner of signing their works in 1678 by which the two could be identified. The father added an “O” for “de Oude” and the son a “J”, here allowing us to ascertain that the present work must have been painted in London in 1678, the last year of the war, at the earliest.
For comparable drawings by van de Velde the Younger cf. M. S. Robinson: The van de Velde drawings in the Boymans-van-Beuningen Museum Rotterdam, 1979, vol. I.