An English Royal yacht

[Ab Hoving]

Early this year a befriended art dealer gave me an original sketch by Willem van de Velde the Younger of an English royal yacht in three views, dated around 1680. The drawing was obviously made very quick with just a few lines. I think it is remarkable that a person can create such a clear image with only a few lines.


As the sketch is rather vague my son worked out a clearer version on the computer.


I got the idea to make a model like that to show it along with the drawing, that is hanging on the wall of my living. So here is in short the development since I started end of January. The scale is 1/77 as usual.










The model does not represent an existing ship, just a type.
As we all know the English yachting started with the Mary, a Dutch Statenjacht, offered by an Amsterdam lord mayor to the newly crowned king Charles II (1630-1685) in 1661. He immediately ordered his shipwrights to make an English version of the vessel and 12 years later there were 27 of them. Due to a wrong choice for the building plan several items of the vessel are not historically correct. But the model pleases me, combined with the Van de Velde drawing. It's just an interpretation. This is the finished state:






Hanging on the wall in my living, with the model underneath:


Emiel placed some photographs over the drawing and as it seems I was not too far off:

Emiel will probably produce a photoshop painting of this scene. I'll let you know when he finishes it.

 

[AllanKP69]

Early this year a befriended art dealer gave me an original sketch by Willem van de Velde the Younger of an English royal yacht

You are very fortunate. I would love to see an original Van de Velde hanging in our house and then to build a model and display it under the drawing as you have done is a wonderful idea. Thanks for posting the photos of the drawing and model. Regarding Photoshop, have you or has any member tried AI Studio's Gemini 2.0 Flash Experimental program? It is free and supposedly does far more than Photoshop.
Allan

 

[KAYA61]

The scale is 1/77 as usual.

If it's not special, may I ask, why is it always 1/77 scale?

 

[Ab Hoving]

@AllanKP69: Thanks. I will pass your remark about Flash Experimental to my son. Working with this sort of computerprograms is far beyond my capabilities.
@KAYA61: It started more or less by accident. In my first book the drawings for the ship involved were printed in that scale. It was sort of a historical choice: one inch is seven Amsterdam feet. Later on, when I also built smaller and bigger ships I wanted to compare the sizes of the ships, so maintaining the same scale would do the job. During that the 1/77 scale appeared to be very practical: all models were between 25 and 80 centimeters, which is perfect for display in an avarage home.

 

[AllanKP69]

Working with this sort of computerprograms is far beyond my capabilities.

You are not alone
Allan

 

[Maarten]

Wow Ab,

Just only from some sketches.
You are a paper magician.

 

[Ab Hoving]

That's better than a paper tiger Maarten.

 

[Bob Cleek]

A beautiful model, Ab! You do wonders with cardstock, and so quickly. I found your figures very impressive. It takes more than just sticking a few figures on a model to give it life. Your figures are all doing things sailors would be doing, and the effect is almost as if they are actually moving! As usual, Emiel's wizardry with Photoshop really provides a strong connection between the original sketch and the model. It deserves a frame to complete the set.

I don't know if Willem van de Velde the Younger had the same issues with his materials as Raphael did a century earlier, but your sketch reminds me of a fresco "cartoon" drawn, as it turned out, by Raphael which was the subject of one of my clients' court cases. The ownership of the sketch on a small piece of paper, as well as its attribution to Raphael, was in dispute. In the course of successfully validating my client's ownership of the cartoon, it came to pass that it was ultimately confirmed by the experts as a true Raphael by scientific examination (some sort of x-ray process, I believe,) that revealed a second fresco cartoon on the paper which exactly matched a portion of one of his extant frescos. As I learned in the course of this court case (and I expect you know) paper was a far more precious commodity for Renaissance artists than it is today. Fresco painting on damp plaster was a team effort. The masters would sketch portions of their frescos on small pieces of paper and provide these "cartoons" to their assistants to lay out full size on the sections of damp plaster prepared for that day's painting. The master would then follow applying the final touches. Once a sketch was done with, it turns out they would coat the piece of paper with flat white paint and when the paint dried, they'd use it again to save money on expensive paper. In my client's case, there was a second sketch beneath the white paint on the paper. Maybe a hundred years later, van de Velde the Younger could afford the luxury of using a piece of drawing paper only once, but, if not, maybe you have more than one van de Velde hanging on your wall!

 

[Ab Hoving]

A great story Bob!
It brings me to a couple more Van de Velde 'drawings' I own (also a gift from this art dealer).
Both Van de Veldes (the Older and the Younger) made detailed sketches of every man-of-war in the fleet. Until 1672 they did the Dutch fleets, after that year, in which they moved to England due to the crashed art market in Holland, they portrayed almost every ship in the British war fleet. It was deliberately done to make it easy to compose a battle on their canvas if they were commissioned by the king, the admiralty or any captain or admiral who wanted to spend their money to be reminded of their heroism in sea battle.
The sketches were done with silver point, a sort of pencil. After the drawing was finished another piece of paper was placed on top to absorb the surplus of graphite or whatever they used. That resulted in a mirrored copy of the drawing, which was also kept and even sold, although they sometimes were very vague. I think they call them 'rub-offs'. I am happy to have two of them in my possession. Here they are, both digitally treated by Emiel to make them clearer.



They are quick sketches of the bow of a ship with an anchor hanging, probably to be used as an example of how they were catted and stowed.

(Being a son of a painter such 'secrets of the trade' interest me highly: https://wietsehoving.nl)

 

[Ab Hoving]

By the way Bob, honesty forces me to tell that the figures I used on the model were not mine. They are produced by my friend Herbert Tomesen with his company called Artitec in Amsterdam. They hire people from re-enactment groups who are photographed in 3D in any wanted clothing in any desired pose so that the result can be printed in any scale. See https://www.artitecshop.com/en/figures/
Just for my convenience he printed some of them in 1/77 scale, a service not available for the regular customer who has to satisfy himself with the current 1/87, 1/120, 1/160 and 1/220 scales.
(In case anyone thinks the pictured scenes look familiar: they are done by Emiel, who works for that firm.)

 

[Martial]

A very interesting project with a beautiful result.

 

[Peter Voogt]

Early this year a befriended art dealer gave me an original sketch by Willem van de Velde the Younger of an English royal yacht in three views, dated around 1680. The drawing was obviously made very quick with just a few lines. I think it is remarkable that a person can create such a clear image with only a few lines.
View attachment 521386

As the sketch is rather vague my son worked out a clearer version on the computer.
View attachment 521387

I got the idea to make a model like that to show it along with the drawing, that is hanging on the wall of my living. So here is in short the development since I started end of January. The scale is 1/77 as usual.
View attachment 521389
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The model does not represent an existing ship, just a type.
As we all know the English yachting started with the Mary, a Dutch Statenjacht, offered by an Amsterdam lord mayor to the newly crowned king Charles II (1630-1685) in 1661. He immediately ordered his shipwrights to make an English version of the vessel and 12 years later there were 27 of them. Due to a wrong choice for the building plan several items of the vessel are not historically correct. But the model pleases me, combined with the Van de Velde drawing. It's just an interpretation. This is the finished state:
View attachment 521400
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Hanging on the wall in my living, with the model underneath:
View attachment 521405

Emiel placed some photographs over the drawing and as it seems I was not too far off:
View attachment 521406
Emiel will probably produce a photoshop painting of this scene. I'll let you know when he finishes it.

A great model, Ab, made from only those sketches! You are a privileged person to have these sketches hanging on your wall. With again some nice PS edits by Emiel.
Regards, Peter