This portrait of the 'Royal Prince', 100 guns, shows this English first-rate three-decker before the wind in starboard-broadside view. In 1694, it was rebuilt and renamed the 'Royal William'. The ship was the second of the name to fight in the Dutch Wars. She was built in 1670 and was the Duke of York's flagship at the Battle of Solebay in 1672, and in the following year was Sir Edmund Spragge's flagship as Admiral of the Blue Squadron at the two Battles of Schooneveld and the Battle of Texel. At the latter, the Dutch made very determined efforts to capture her and her successful defence, despite being reduced to a shambles, is one of the classics of naval history.

After the war, she was modified and is seen here with modernized stern galleries. The ship on the far right is an English ketch-rigged royal yacht used for taking important people to and from the Continent, as well as for royalty.

The artist worked in England between approximately 1670 and 1720. There is another more sketchy version of this portrait in the Dutch section of the Museum of Fine Arts in Valletta (where it has also been occasionally exhibited in the Malta Maritime Museum). The Malta version was purchased from the estate of a local collector, Paul Bellanti, in the 1930s. The Greenwich painting is signed and dated 1679 by the artist.