Adam Willaerts

The Defeat of the Spanish at Gibraltar by a Dutch Fleet under the Command of Admiral Jacob van Heemskerck, 25 April 1607

1617

Inscriptions

  • signature and date, bottom right (A and D ligated):AD. Willarts 1617

Technical notes

The support, a plain-weave canvas, has been lined. The tacking edges have been preserved, and cusping is visible on all sides. The ground is white. The freely sketched underdrawing indicating the figures is visible with the naked eye. Considering the fluent nature of the underdrawing it was probably executed in ink or thin paint. The sky was painted over at a later date.

Scientific examination and reports

  • technical report: I. Verslype, RMA, 19 januari 2005
  • infrared photography: I. Verslype, RMA, 19 januari 2005

Condition

Fair. There is a small repaired tear approximately 3.5 cm long, and small local areas of paint loss.

Conservation

  • W.A. Hopman, 1889: canvas lined
  • M. van de Laar, 1987: complete restoration

Provenance

...; ? recorded in the Examiners of Finance of the States’ Chamber, Utrecht, 1778 (‘In het vertrek der vergadering van de ... Hoogmogende Gecomm. finantie op de Statenkamer te Utrecht worden van Adam Willerts gezien twee ongemeen groote en verwonderlyk schoon uitgevoerde Zee-stukken, verbeeldende den roemruchtigen Zeeslag voor Gibraltar van den Lt. Admiraal tegens de Spaansche Vloot onder den Admiraal voorgevallen den 25 April 1607’);1Hoevenaar 1778, p. 18; see also Bok in Amsterdam 1993, p. 326, note 18....; sale, The Hague (A.G. de Visscher), 30 January 1878, no. 41, fl. 50, to the museum

ObjectNumber: SK-A-1387

The artist

Biography

Adam Willaerts (London 1577 - Utrecht 1664)

According to De Bie and Houbraken, Adam Willaerts was born in Antwerp, but recently discovered documents show that he was the son of a Flemish immigrant in London. The baptismal register of Austin Friars Church shows that he was baptized on 21 July 1577. The family probably moved to Amsterdam around 1589. In 1602, Adam Willaerts and Salomon Vredeman de Vries were commissioned to paint the organ shutters in Utrecht Cathedral. He became a citizen of Utrecht six years later, and it was around then that he painted his first known dated work, The Dutch East India Company Fleet near an Island off the Coast of West Africa, in 1608 or 1609.2Amsterdams Historisch Museum; illustrated in Bol 1973, p. 63, fig. 59.

That Willaerts was an important figure among Utrecht artists is clear from his active involvement in founding the city’s Guild of St Luke in 1611, and from the fact that he served as its dean for many years. He was in regular touch with other Utrecht artists, such as Roelant Savery, Cornelis van Poelenburch, Herman Saftleven and Bernard Zwaerdecroon.

It can be deduced from the guild accounts that he taught a large number of ‘apprentice boys’. He was married and had six children, three of whom also became painters: Cornelis (?-1666), Abraham (c. 1613-69) and Isaac (c. 1620-93).

Much of Willaerts’s oeuvre consists of marines and coastal landscapes. He also made seascapes featuring biblical figures. Willaerts regularly received specific commissions, among others from the burgomasters of Utrecht, the Dordrecht Chamber of Justice3Dordrechts Museum, View of Dordrecht; illustrated in Nelemans 1999, II, fig. 3. and the States of Utrecht (see below). Through the artist Simon de Passe he also received a request from King Christian IV of Denmark to contribute to a series of paintings for Kronborg Castle. He also painted for the open market. Adam Willaerts died in 1664. His last known dated work, Shipwreck in a Violent Storm, is from 1656.4Private collection.

Everhard Korthals Altes, 2007

References
De Bie 1661, pp. 111-12; Von Sandrart 1675 (1925), p. 176; Houbraken I, 1718, p. 60; Schulz in Thieme/Becker XXXVI, 1947, pp. 8-9; Muller 1880, pp. 92, 96, 98, 126; Bok in Amsterdam 1993, pp. 325-26; Giltaij in Rotterdam-Berlin 1996, p. 113; Briels 1997, pp. 407-08

Entry

Adam Willaerts made this painting in 1617, precisely ten years after the naval battle it depicts. On 25 April 1607, a Dutch fleet of 26 warships sailed into the Bay of Gibraltar and largely destroyed a Spanish fleet of almost equal size but m ore heavily armed. Admiral Jacob van Heemskerck perished at the beginning of the battle.5Israel 1995, p. 402.

Hendrick Vroom and Cornelis van Wieringen also depicted this famous victory, and they too did so many years later.6See, for example, SK-A-2163. The battle was evidently an event that people wanted to commemorate and glorify during the Twelve Years’ Truce and later. The painters may have based their works on descriptions and prints in order to remain as close to the facts as possible.

Willaerts’s is painted in a decorative, slightly stylized manner. According to Bol, the depiction of the ships and the cliffs recalls the way in which the artist had worked ten years previously, but one innovation was the much lower horizon.7Cf. A Fleet of the Dutch East India Company, Amsterdams Historisch Museum; see Bol 1973, pp. 63-65 (ill.). This made the sky a more important element in the scene. Much of that sky was overpainted, probably in the 18th or early 19th century.8Note RMA.

It is possible that this painting was commissioned by the States of Utrecht. In the 18th century there were two paintings of the Battle of Gibraltar by Willaerts in the room occupied by the Examiners of Finance of the States’ Chamber.9Bok in Amsterdam 1993, p. 326, note 18.

A drawing by Willaerts with a similar view of the Bay of Gibraltar is in the Van Regteren Altena collection in Amsterdam.10Rotterdam etc. 1976, pp. 94-95, no. 158, pl. 56.

Everhard Korthals Altes, 2007

See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements

This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 343.

Literature

Bol 1973, p. 65; Bok in Amsterdam 1993, p. 326, note 18

Collection catalogues

1903, p. 300, no. 2682; 1934, p. 319, no. 2682; 1976, p. 605, no. A 1387; 2007, no. 343

Citation

E. Korthals Altes, 2007, 'Adam Willaerts, The Defeat of the Spanish at Gibraltar by a Dutch Fleet under the Command of Admiral Jacob van Heemskerck, 25 April 1607, 1617', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.7286

(accessed 26 April 2025 10:22:21).

Footnotes

  • 1Hoevenaar 1778, p. 18; see also Bok in Amsterdam 1993, p. 326, note 18.
  • 2Amsterdams Historisch Museum; illustrated in Bol 1973, p. 63, fig. 59.
  • 3Dordrechts Museum, View of Dordrecht; illustrated in Nelemans 1999, II, fig. 3.
  • 4Private collection.
  • 5Israel 1995, p. 402.
  • 6See, for example, SK-A-2163.
  • 7Cf. A Fleet of the Dutch East India Company, Amsterdams Historisch Museum; see Bol 1973, pp. 63-65 (ill.).
  • 8Note RMA.
  • 9Bok in Amsterdam 1993, p. 326, note 18.
  • 10Rotterdam etc. 1976, pp. 94-95, no. 158, pl. 56.