The drawing is an offset rubbed on the back. It is signed in pen and brown ink lower right ‘W.V.V.J.’ and inscribed lower left ‘Roijal soverijn’. The ‘Royal Sovereign’ was launched at Woolwich in 1701. Van de Velde’s painting of her (BHC3614) is dated 1703. It is possibly a study for van de Velde’s painting of the. Robinson suggests that another drawing of a detail of the same ship may have been drawn from a ship model.