When offered in these Rooms in 1965, the picture bore a portrait of Admiral Michiel Adriaansz. de Ruyter inset in the middle of the sky at upper left (see the catalogue illustration), and the ship was identified as his flagship. The portrait had been removed by 1977, when the ship was tentatively identified as the Zeelandia; built in 1648, this was bought by the Zeeland Admiralty at the beginning of the First Dutch War in 1652 and was captured by the English in 1665.

We are grateful to Mr. Michael Robinson for confirming the attribution; he suggests that the picture is an early work, datable c.1645