The Dutch fleet getting under way off the Jutland coast, ?14 [OS]/24 October 1658. One of a series of drawings made by van de Velde the Elder while accompanying the Dutch fleet under Jacob van Wassenaer on the expedition into Danish waters when Holland supported the Danish cause against Sweden. This resulted in the defeat of the Danish fleet under Admiral Wrangel at the battle of the Sound of which was to be the subject of a number of pen paintings drawn by van de Velde, including one now in the NMM collection (BHC0280), and another commissioned by Cosimo III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, in the Pitti Palace, Florence. This is probably number 10 of the series: numbers 11 and 12 are in Brighton Museum and Art gallery and number 13 in the Nederlands Scheepvaart Museum, Amsterdam.

The Dutch fleet is depicted apparently off the same coast shown in the drawings in Brighton Museum. A tower in the right distance may be indicated by a faint inscription at the top weste Tooren. The ‘Eendracht’ is seen in the left centre with a galjoot just to the left. On the extreme left is another galjoot (where van de Velde probably intended to join on another piece of paper) and in the right centre foreground a stern view of the ‘Duivenvoorde’. Van Wassenaer recorded in his journal that on the 14 [OS]/24 October the fleet came to an anchor in the morning between Schagen (Skaw) and Hirtshals; later the fleet weighed but came to an anchor again in the same place, not being able to make any progress against the wind and the tide.