Giftset: Atelier Willaerts

Abraham Willaerts or atelier Willaerts: Nederlandse schepen op de rede van Recife, Brazilië (Dutch ships on the roadstead of Recife, Brazil), 1640, oil on panel, 40 x 65 cm depicts a seventeenth-century warship, viewed from the stern end (the back of the ship), firing a salute. In the foreground on the right is a rowing boat, carrying passengers who are waving at the warship. Beyond that, we see a square-sterned yacht and a sandbank, behind which a small fleet is moored. There is a fort at the right-hand end of the sandbank. In the background, spanning the whole width of the painting, we see the coastline along with the buildings of the Brazilian city of Recife, then called Pernambuco.