The Battle of Gibraltar, 25 April 1607

A similar depiction of the Battle of Gibraltar, also by Willaerts, is in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. no. A 2162), with the same circular battery to the right of the picture. The composition of both works shows some debt to the painting of the same subject by Cornelis Claesz. van Wieringen, commissioned by the Amsterdam Admiralty in 1621 as a gift for Prince Maurits (Amsterdam, Nederlands Scheepvaartsmuseum).

The first major naval victory of the United Provinces over the Spanish in the Eighty Years' War, the Battle of Gibraltar was the victory of a combined fleet from Holland and Zeeland that had sailed to attack the Spanish in their own waters. A crushing defeat for the Spanish, the battle is well documented in contemporary sources, such as E. van Meteren's comprehensive Historie der Neder-landscher ende haerder Na-buren oorlogen ende geschiedenissen, tot den iare M.VIcXII, of 1614. Willaerts here follows many details of the battle. The Spanish vessel on the left, with the Royal coat-of-arms on its flag, is the Nostra Señora de la Vega, the Spanish Vice Admiral's flagship, surrounded by Dutch ships under the commands of Adriaen Roest, Symon Jansen and Cornelis Madder. In the centre, further to the rear, is the San Augustin, the flagship of the Spanish Admiral, Don Juan Alvarez d'Avila, with the Aeolus under the Dutch Admiral, Jacob van Heemskerck, grappled to its bows and the Tijger under Lambert 'Mooy' Hendrickx preparing to board from astern. To the right, approaching the tower is De Roode Leeuw, the flagship of Vice Admiral Laurens Jacobsz. Alteras of Zeeland, which had been instructed to board the Nostra Señora de la Vega, but had overshot its target. The Rock of Gibraltar is shown to the right. On entering the bay, the Dutch encountered a number of foreign vessels that the Spanish had seized; one of these was from France, and it is presumably this that is shown on the far right, under the French fleur-de-lys.