A Warship at Anchor in a Rough Sea

Apsley House at Hyde Park Corner — the London townhouse of the Dukes of Wellington, now a museum — holds a distinguished collection that includes Dutch and Flemish paintings acquired by Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington, from the Spanish royal collections following the Peninsular War. Bakhuizen's 1679 canvas of a warship at anchor in rough seas would have appealed to a military mind for its subject as much as its artistry. The subject of a warship holding its anchor in deteriorating conditions was one of controlled power under pressure — the vessel's formidable armament is deployed not in action but in endurance, which carries its own kind of martial dignity. By 1679 Bakhuizen had arrived at his most fully developed manner, and this canvas represents his capacity to extract dramatic effect from a static subject through purely atmospheric and painterly means.

Oil on canvas, with the challenge of an anchored rather than sailing vessel requiring Bakhuizen to generate motion through sea and sky alone. The waves around the hull are rendered with urgency — short, upward impasto strokes of white and grey — while the ship itself maintains its composed verticality. The sky is built in multiple layers of grey and cream that suggest heavy cloud moving across the scene, and the overall palette is cooler and more silvery than his more dramatic storm canvases.