Portrait of the ‘Prins te Paard’ built in about 1658 and wrecked in 1683.

Portrait of the ‘Prins te Paard’ viewed from the starboard quarter. The drawing shows on the broadside twelve guns on the gun deck and eleven on the upper deck; the numbers for forecastle and quarterdeck are unrecorded. The tafferel shows a man on a prancing horse, a tree on the right and a crowned shield top left (all symbolizing the Prince of Orange). On the rail above are the arms of Amsterdam between dolphins.

This is a work drawn accurately in pencil, with flat grey washes, from the starboard quarter, with lower masting indicated but no rigging. It is signed (lower left in ink) ‘W. V. V. J.’, inscribed (top left in pencil) ‘de jonge prinse te Paert’ (the young Prince on Horseback) and dated in the lower right, possibly in a later hand 1673, corrected to 1672. Robinson also records the inscription ‘lanhoren’, probably alluding to the lack of them on the quarters. Based on the watermark, signature and style Robinson, also suggests an earlier date of possibly 1666, and that the drawing may have been used for paintings of the action at Bergen in August 1665.

It is probably based on an offset, but not in reverse. PAG6178 is an offset from the same original worked up by the Elder and Robinson also lists five other drawings of ships of the same name or ‘Jonge Prins te Paard’. One of an Indiaman usually called the ‘Jong Prins’ is in the NMM (PAH1784), three in the Boymans Museum, Rotterdam, and one, at the time he wrote, in the Reitlinger Collection.

Object Details

ID: PAH5016
Type: Drawing
Display location: Not on display
Creator: Velde, Willem van de, the Younger
Vessels: Prins te Paard 1658? [Dutch navy]
Date made: 1666?
People: Velde, Willem van de, the Younger
Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Caird Collection
Measurements: Sheet: 323 x 413 mm; Mount: 641 mm x 773 mm