Ludolf Bakhuizen, 'The Eendracht and a Fleet of Dutch Men-of-war', about 1670-5

The great ship in the centre of Bakhuizen’s picture is the Eendracht, one of the most famous vessels in the Dutch Navy. Built in 1653, the Eendracht was a 76-gun flagship of Lieutenant-Admiral Jacob van Wassenaer van Obdam. His pennant streams out against the sky below the Dutch flag on the main mast.

The ship’s name means ‘Union’ and it came to symbolise the long fight by the newly United Provinces of the Dutch Republic for their freedom from Spanish rule. At this time, a large number of Dutch men and boys went to sea, many of them in the navy in defence of their country.

The fleet sails swiftly away from us, leaning into choppy, white-tipped waves. There’s no land in sight. Bakhuizen knows how to evoke the excitement and danger of a fleet setting off for war. Flags fly high and raise feelings of patriotism with them – and were meant to do so. Gunports are open, cannons at the ready. Even the highly decorated barge ploughing its way through the breakers towards the Eendracht stresses the danger: men on board point out the buoy floating nearby that shows the deeper waters they must keep to for safe passage. One of the men wears white lace at his cuff and ostrich feathers in his hat which, with the white flag bearing an orange symbol, suggest that this is an important official from the Orange province on his way to see the Admiral.

Some things seem to prefigure the battle to come: the puff of smoke from the inward-bound yacht firing a gun salute to the Eendracht, the rough sea, the grey clouds. Directly behind the barge is a fluyt (flute), a merchant vessel perhaps belonging to the Dutch East India Company, whose trading ventures spread far and wide – not without competition. These vessels were almost always also armed for war and against piracy. This one may be also featured here to imply that trade was one of the main reasons for war between the Dutch and other nations in the seventeenth century.

Bakhuizen painted the Eendracht several times but always from sketches made between 1653 and 1655. This picture, painted in the 1670s, probably also depended on memory. Bakhuizen’s ship portraits are usually accurate but in this one he is less so. The lion carved into the Dutch coat of arms in the stern should be shown rampant – that is, upright on its hind legs – and, in the case of Dutch imagery, brandishing a sword. But perhaps there is a purpose in Bakhuizen laying his lion low. The picture may portray the fleet’s departure for the Battle of Lowestoft against the English on 3 June 1665. During the action, the Eendracht was blown up and sunk with nearly all the crew, including the Admiral.