This panel shows a Dutch harbour in a calm with small vessels inshore and beached among fishermen, a kaag at anchor, a states yacht and men o'war offshore.
This composition in black and white, a remarkable fusion of painting and drawing, is usually described as a pen-painting (after the Dutch penschilderij). The technique probably derives from the work of Hendrick Goltzius, but for the Mannerist painter it was a bravura demonstration of technical virtuosity, a means of astounding his viewers with his extraordinary dexterity, while for Willem van de Velde the Elder, it was more a means to an end. Over the course of his long career he made relatively few traditional oil paintings in colour, preferring instead the pen-painting, and he viewed himself primarily as a draftsman.
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