A man-of-war sailing out from a harbour with a fluitschip and a merchantman at anchor nearby in a stiff breeze - a penschilderij

The present picture is characteristic for the artist. He is recorded in Delft in 1642 and joined the Guild in 1644. His oeuvre was limited to penschilderijen; Doctor Jan Sysmus, who kept a painter's register between 1669 and 1678, thus reffered to him: "H. Witmont, groote schepen met de pen, moy" (H. Witmont, large ships with the pen, beautiful) (see F. Lammertse, in Lof der Zeevaart, exh. cat, 1996, p.407). His technique differs from that of his colleagues Willem van de Velde I and Experiens Sillemans by the use of brown instead of black ink and by the concentration of dots instead of cross-hatching in the shadows of the waves and the sails. The penschilder technique was thought to be the invention of Willem van de Velde I. However it seems likely that it was developed independently in Delft and Amsterdam at the same time.