Calm: A Kaag near the Shore with other Vessels

Willem van der Velde the younger (Leyden 1633 – London 1707). Oil painting on canvas, Calm: A Kaag near the Shore with other Vessels by Willem van der Velde the younger (Leyden 1633 – London 1707), signed and dated lower right: W.V Velde In Londe Ao 1673 (round letters). A low sun is shining from the right of the picture; summery clouds to the left. In the centre, starboard broadside view, a kaarg just off the shore with a line out forward to some stumps at the water's edge in the right foreground. She has her brown spritsail half lowered and the yard at an angle in the slings; her white foresail is lying on the foredeck. There is a skiff on the cabin-top aft and there are three men on board. A pendant at her ensign staff is blue white blue with a gold lion on white in chief. A blue white blue pendant or flag has been found on a number of small vessels, both merchant vessels and yachts. No relation has been found between these colours and any likely Dutch town and it is possible that it was the private pendant or flag used by Van de Velde when on board a vessel. His arms were 'barry wavy' presumably blue and white; the only known example of his seal is at Greenwich.Close on her port quarter is a small kaarg, starboard quarter view, with her white spritsail set. In the left foreground at the water's edge three men, one on board with an oar, are pushing off a (?) weyschuit. In the right middle-distance across an inlet beyond the stumps are several vessels ashore on a spit of sand, the largest of them, probably a kaarg, being hauled over on her port side for repairs to be done to her bottom. In the left background, starboard broadside view, a ship perhaps getting under way, her fore and main topsails being loosed and she is firing a gun as a signal; she has a flag at the mizzen as a rear-admiral. Ham House, Surrey (Accredited Museum)