The plain-weave canvas has been lined. The tacking edges have been removed, and cusping is not present. The ground has a light colour. Brushmarking is visible in the sky and flames.

Good. There is some abrasion and areas of inpainting, an especially large one being in the centre of the sky.

…; ? the heirs of Admiral van Heemskerck (1567-1607);¹¹Note RMA. ? by descent to Jonkheer H. Tedingh van Berckhout (on loan to the Museum der Stad Haarlem until 1905);²²Note RMA. his sale, Amsterdam (F. Muller), 27 June 1905 ­sqq. no. 120, as H.C. Vroom, fl. 975, to the museum

Object number: SK-A-2163

The explosion of the Spanish flagship was the decisive moment in the Battle of Gibraltar. A Dutch warship is ramming the burning ship in the foreground. The explosion hurls men into the sky, while others try to escape in a sloop.

In 1621, the authorities and Admiralty of Amsterdam ordered a painting of the Battle of Gibraltar from Hendrick Vroom. They planned to present it to Prince Maurits, the commander-in-chief of the Dutch forces, to mark the building of a new wing of his residence in the Stadholders’ Quarter in The Hague. Vroom asked for the astronomical sum of 6,000 guilders, which his prospective clients considered exorbitant.⁴⁴Bredius II, 1916, pp. 671-79; Russell 1983, p. 166. Vroom refused to budge on the price, so the contract fell through, whereupon the Admiralty approached Vroom’s pupil Cornelis van Wieringen. He was paid 2,400 guilders for the painting, the largest marine ever made in the Netherlands in the 17th century.⁵⁵Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum, illustrated in Rotterdam-Berlin 1996, p. 111.

Van Wieringen had to paint a trial piece before he was given the commission, and that was probably this work, which for a long time was attributed to Vroom. Although the size of the painting differs a little from that stipulated in the documents, the description ‘two ships’ matches what is to be seen here. Once Prince Maurits had approved the trial piece, the Admiralty ordered a modello of the composition of the large canvas.⁶⁶The signed modello is now in a Dutch private collection, and is illustrated in Rotterdam-Berlin 1996, pp. 108-09, no. 10.

In its style and use of colour, this painting fits better within Van Wieringen’s oeuvre than Vroom’s. The latter’s compositions are generally less cluttered than Van Wieringen’s, and his outlines of the ships and other details are crisper than Vroom’s slightly vague style.⁷⁷Russell 1983, pp. 174-75. Van Wieringen’s figures, on the other hand, are more delicate and precise than Vroom’s.

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. 341.

Bol 1973, p. 17; Keyes 1975, I, p. 128; Russell 1983, pp. 174-76, 202; Brand 1995, p. 203; Brand in Rotterdam-Berlin 1996, pp. 105-07, no. 9; Kloek 2000, pp. 143, 150; Zandvliet in Amsterdam 2000a, pp. 406-07, no. 232

1934, p. 310, no. 2604a (as Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom); 1976, p. 593, no. 2163 (as Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom); 1992, p. 93, no. A 2163; 2007, no. 341

E. Korthals Altes, 2007, 'Cornelis Claesz. van Wieringen, The Explosion of the Spanish Flagship during the Battle of Gibraltar, 25 April 1607, c. 1621', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200108391