A small Dutch, sprit-rigged, leeboard yacht of the Admiralty of Zeeland, is shown in port-broadside view in calm and shallow coastal waters. It bears at least six guns and its ornate decoration includes a figurehead of a young man on a prancing horse, suggesting its name may be the 'Jong Prins te Paard' ('Young Prince on Horseback'). The flag of the Zeeland admiralty flies at the peak, a striped Zeeland flag at the masthead and the Dutch ensign at the stern. A number of sailors are variously occupied in the bow and midships, attending to the sailing of the vessel, with one man standing on the rail by the shrouds. They appear to be running out a bowsprit while the yacht is held head to wind by a square foresail, set aback, on her forestay. A group of affluently dressed men and women look forward from the raised poop and a small boat can be seen in tow astern, with the poles of coastal fish nets to its right. A small coastal vessel moves across the image from the left and there is considerable other shipping activity visible in the distance. The flat coast in the distance on the far right may be Zeeland.

Born in Rotterdam, Simon de Vlieger was one of the important early painters in the emerging discipline of marine art. He was a member of the Delft Guild of Painters from 1634 and by 1638 was in Amsterdam. He settled in nearby Weesp and remained there for the rest of his life. This early work was painted before the artist evolved a naturalistic style and was probably painted in Rotterdam before he moved to Amsterdam. De Vlieger decisively influenced the direction of Dutch marine art during the 1630s and 1640s. Significantly, as the pupil of Jan Porcellis and the master of Willem van de Velde the Younger, he provided a bridge between the second generation of Dutch marine painters and the third. He demonstrated his versatility and technical accomplishment by painting a wide variety of marine subjects and was also a sophisticated early exponent of the Dutch realist tradition. He moved away from a monochrome palette towards a silvery tonality and demonstrated a closely observed knowledge of shipping. He also painted figural representations for churches, genre scenes and landscapes, and was also an etcher.