Abraham van Salm specialized in marine painting executed in pen en grisaille in the style popularized by Willem van de Velde I. Salm painted herring fleets at sea on more than one occasion. Addressing the same theme, these display considerable differences in treatment but retain the same compositional devices (see, for instance, that in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, Inv. no. BHC09067e; and the painting sold at Ader Picard Tajan, Paris, June 6, 1991, lot 19).