Calm: an English two-decker with sails loosed firing a salute, 1682 (oil on canvas)

Creator: Willem van de Velde, the Elder 'Calm: an English two-decker with sails loosed firing a salute' To the left a two-decker ship is shown coming to anchor in a very light breeze. She has a red flag at the mizzen indicating a Rear-Admiral of the Red, and flies a common pendant below a vane at the main. She is firing her guns in salute. There are many men in the starboard rigging presumably going aloft to furl the sails. A ship’s barge in the right foreground pulls away from the ship to the right, with another barge pulling away to the right of her. There is a three-decker at anchor with a blue flag at the main in the right background. She is a second-rate ship probably built as part of the ship building programme of 1677. There are boats around her stern and other ships under sail in the background and in the distance. The painting is signed and dated ‘W V V d oude f 1682’.