A variety of shipping is shown, on a blustery day, off the Dutch coast. A kaag or ferry boat with a red sail occupies the centre foreground of the painting. She flies the Dutch flag at the mainmast and is carrying a range of figures towards land in the far distance. The russet sails of the boat are swelled by the breeze which blows, from left to right, across the picture surface. The boat dominates the composition. Like Bonaventura Peeters’ treatment of the same subject (BHC0760), de Vlieger renders his ferry boat from a curiously high viewpoint. Thus facilitating a clear view of the figures on board. Several of the passengers gesture as if in conversation. While a couple, dressed in black, sit on the port side, overlooking the water with their backs turned to the viewer. Other passengers are placed around the sides, several smoke pipes. Unusually one of the figures is wearing a turban and looking directly towards the viewer. He is, also, smoking and he may be one of the crew. The varied dress of the passengers, which is indicative of their social status, has been carefully observed. A sailor, wearing a red cap, stands on the starboard-quarter gunwale hauling in the sail. On the port side a burgher, also wearing red, holds a conversation with another passenger, who smokes a pipe.

The image of the wide-bottomed kaag, engaged in the transport of goods and passengers across waterways has been considered a quintessentially Dutch leitmotif. Left of the ferry boat is a smaller fishing pink with a red sail, in which sailors struggle to hoist the second sail. While, in the distance, a fluyt is visible. She flies the Dutch flag. These vessels have their counterparts on the right. A large ship is sketchily illustrated in the right background and another kaag, with a white sail, is shown moving away from the viewer in the right foreground. In this painting, the meticulous execution of the vessels testifies to de Vlieger’s skill as a draughtsman. However the painting is no less an exploration of atmospheric effects. Powerfully lit from the right, the sunlight almost bleaches the vessels in the background and penetrates the sail of the kaag which appears as a reddish reflection on the surface of the sea. Waves are rendered with tangible vigour and the motion of the sea, diagonally from left to right, is accentuated by exquisite sprays of water.

The conspicuous use of fresh colour in the painting is a rarity for de Vlieger, whose work is often characterized by limited colour schemes (BHC0776 and BHC0778). The bright sails and pronounced shadows anticipate the paintings of Jan van de Cappelle and Hendrick Dubbels (BHC0917) and suggest a date for the painting in the late 1640s. The compositional pre-eminence given to the enormous central kaag makes the painting especially unusual. Rarely are vessels the main subjects of de Vlieger’s marine paintings which usually focus on the environment and mood of a particular view. Unusual, too, is the painting’s square format which has no obvious precedent. It is tempting to think that the canvas may have been cut down from a more conventional rectangle but technical examination by the Museum has found no evidence of this.

Simon de Vlieger was born in Rotterdam in around 1600. He was an important early painter in the emerging discipline of marine art. In 1634, he became a member of the Delft Guild of Painters and, by 1638, was in Amsterdam. He settled in nearby Weesp and remained there for the rest of his life. De Vlieger influenced the direction of Dutch marine art decisively 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 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 an etcher. De Vlieger died in the coastal town of Weesp early in 1653. The painting is inscribed 'S de Vlieger' on the flag at the mainmast.