In the left foreground the ‘Gelderland’ is in starboard-quarter view, identified from the two lions combatant on her tafferel. She is lying with her topsails atrip, fore course clewed up and topgallantsails loosed on the cap. There are men on the main yard furling sails. Originally there was a pendant at the main but the tops of the masts have been cut off and redrawn lower down. Ten ships are in the background, including a large ship on the right which may have a flag and pendant at the main. In the foreground left and right, there are two boats (both marked in brown ink with a cross and the letter ‘d’) pulling towards the ships. Another boat in the centre is marked ‘k’. The drawing is number ‘60’, altered from ‘59’.

This is one of twelve drawings at the NMM, which by the inscriptions on them and by the paper they are on appear to belong to a series done before the Battle of Solebay, 28 May 1672. The only numbers traced in the NMM collection are 59 and 60. Other drawings made before the battle are in the British Museum and the Ashmolean Museum.