The Burning of the Royal James at the Battle of Solebay, 7 June 1672

Dated 1675 and held at Het Scheepvaartmuseum in Amsterdam, this large canvas depicting the burning of the Royal James at the Battle of Solebay is one of Van de Velde's most important commemorative works. The Royal James, a first-rate man-of-war carrying one hundred guns, was the largest ship lost at Solebay and her destruction symbolised the heavy toll the Dutch attack had exacted. Van de Velde had been present at the battle in 1672 and returned to its iconography repeatedly throughout the 1670s, each version refining his compositional and technical understanding of the event. Het Scheepvaartmuseum holds this as a centrepiece of its collection of Dutch naval history paintings, and the work's scale — consistent with a major commemorative commission rather than a cabinet piece — underlines its institutional rather than domestic purpose. The three-year gap between the battle and this version suggests deliberate reflection rather than immediate response: the painting synthesises eyewitness observation with compositional and narrative maturity.

Large canvas with a bold compositional contrast between the burning ship's warm fire-tones and the cooler surrounding sea and sky. Flames are built from multiple glazed layers — yellow at the base through orange to red-brown at the column tops. The smoke above is painted in warm dark tones that shift to cooler greys as they dissipate into the sky.