The Battle of the Downs against the Spanish Armada, 21 October 1639

Hosts of ships clash in the English Channel in this grisaille of the Battle of the Downs, where a combined Anglo-Dutch fleet broke the Spanish fleet off Dover on 21 October 1639. Willem van de Velde the Elder, the founder of one of the great dynasties of marine painters, worked up this broad wash drawing on canvas from eyewitness sketches in 1659, turning the huge battle into one of the most ambitious of his celebrated silver-and-grey battle grisailles. Working only in tones of grey ink on canvas, he renders the close-packed vessels and gunsmoke with a precision and drama that made his marine scenes the standard by which the genre was measured.