Shipping in a Calm at Flushing with a States General Yacht Firing a Salute

Grand ships glide through the placid harbour of Vlissingen, where the Dutch East India Company loaded its fleets: a cannon on the great yacht fires the salute that announces a dignitary, carried ashore by the launch at the right. With this picture of 1649 Jan van de Cappelle invented the “parade” marine — vessels gathered for a state occasion beneath dramatic cloudy skies — and he rendered every shroud, sail and ornament with the virtuosity that made him the school’s greatest painter of the sea. The painting is held in the J. Paul Getty Museum.