A dramatic portrayal of two Dutch East Indiamen who may have returned from a journey overseas. The two ships are flying Dutch flags and a plain red jack. In the centre of this painting, a smalschip, with cream and brown sails, travels into the wind. Six men can be seen in her stern as she passes under the bows of an imposing Dutch East Indiaman. A smalschip, meaning narrow ship, took its name from its ability to negotiate locks on inland waterways. One of the men gestures towards the ship on the far right, seen in port-bow view, with a carved figurehead of a lion. The deck is laden with men busy on various tasks as it prepares to anchor. To the right of the central Dutch East Indiaman, a small two-masted boat comes round its stern. Another monumental Dutch East Indiaman is positioned on the left. She is in distant port-quarter view and has a scene painted on her stern depicting a pavilion with trees. These are possibly palm trees. This is indicative of her exotic trade associations. Men are portrayed in the rigging and can be seen working on the sails. Two other large vessels, in the far distance, on the left, are either coming to anchor or are already so. The closer one, a large fluyt, fires a salute. A sturdy brown buoy floats amid the broad, sweeping waves which dominate the foreground. On the far horizon, a glimpse of several tall buildings including a church tower, set against a swathe of luminous, pale sky, alludes to the distant presence of land. The curved shape of dunes can be seen on the right which suggests that this is an estuary scene or a channel between islands on the Dutch coast. The artist has signed his name on the buoy in the centre foreground.

The low horizon of the composition affords a broad view of this magnificent and overclouded sky. Rolling skies became an emphatic characteristic of Dubbels’ work from around 1640. Here, a mottled blue sky occupies the vast majority of the composition which endows the scene with depth and clarity. A diagonal stream of thick, weighty clouds soars across the sky, seeming to swell and unfurl beyond the confines of the picture surface. Strong contrasts of light and dark dominate both the sea and sky. Dubbels’ portrayal of the sea is similarly meticulous. The waves, painted using broad brushstrokes in variegated shades of blue, seem to move nimbly across the picture plane. In the immediate foreground, a solid dark seam of shadow, at the bottom of the painting, provides a stark contrast with the remaining paler waves. Dubbels’ focus on the reflective qualities of water is especially compelling in this work. The sun, conspicuously absent from the scene but raking across the foreground from out of frame to the left, strongly highlights the sails of the smalschip. The rays of the sun create reddish-brown reflections on the surface of the sea in front of smalschip. In this painting human presence is, also, significant. Seated in the smalschip, a number of figures are firmly and meticulously articulated. This attention to figural detail is highly reminiscent of the work of Simon de Vlieger, under whom Dubbels worked as an apprentice from 1650 to 1653. The realism and boldness evinced in this composition, also, resonates with the work of Ludolf Backhuysen in particular his energetic portrayal of 'The Merchant Shipping Anchorage off Texel Island with Oude Schild in the Distance' (BHC0916). This is hardly surprising since Backhuysen may have been a pupil of Dubbels. Moreover the painting was previously considered to by Backhuysen until Dubbels’ signature was found, on the buoy, during cleaning in the 1980s.

Dubbels was born in Amsterdam in 1621. He worked chiefly within the tradition established by his master, Simon de Vlieger, and with other marine artists. He is thought to have worked in the studio of the van de Veldes, before they moved to London.