Aert Antonisz (1579–1620) was born in Antwerp, but like many Flemish artists of his age moved to Amsterdam, presumably around 1590.

In this oil panel the artist depicted an action between an English, a Dutch and a Spanish vessel. The scene of the ships firing broadsides is placed in the foreground and portrayed from a slightly elevated viewpoint allowing the ships to fill the height of the composition. The detailed rendering of the rigging and the human activity aboard a vessel seem to be the artist’s particular interest rather than the reference to a specific naval battle.

The colour scheme with the glassy-green water and the bright flags and ensigns, as well as the simplification and stylisation of the natural form, is generally associated with the 16th-century tradition of the Southern Netherlands. But images like this, which might be dated around 1610, laid an iconographic and stylistic basis for the development of the Dutch historic seascape later in the 17th century.