Name/Title14 maritime prints by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
About this objectSet of 14 sixteenth-century Breugel sailing ship prints. This engraving belongs to a series of prints known as the Sailing Vessels, executed by Frans Huys after designs by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The series displays a wide range of sailing vessels, including merchantmen and warships, large seagoing vessels and small coasters, galleys, and caravels.
In the first of the two examples here, Bruegel depicts a four masted ship, and two three masted ones anchored near a fortified island capped by a lighthouse. The detail and painstaking accuracy with which the vessels are rendered attests to the artist’s care and indicates that Bruegel may have prepared for the series by making numerous sketches and elaborate studies – none of which are extant.
In the second example, flying from the top of the foremast is a flag with the Burgundian or St Andrew’s cross, from the top of the mainmast a Portuguese flag with an armillary sphere, and from the head of the mizzenmast the flag of Porto. Armament of some 50 cannon and bundles of throwing spears in the tops proclaim the warlike nature of the vessel. Several members of the crew are mounting the shrouds as the four masted ship puts to sea from the roads of a town which could well be Antwerp.
As a mercantile superpower with direct access to the North Sea, and as home to some of the most ambitious traders and explorers in Europe, Antwerp took great pride in the prowess and engineering of their ships and in their connection to the sea. Whatever the precise source of their appeal, Bruegel’s series of Sailing Vessels was a highly sophisticated creation that far surpassed previous examples of the genre in technique and imagination.
MakerPieter Bruegel the Elder - Artist
Maker RoleArtist
MakerFrans Huys - Engraver
Maker RoleEngraver
Date Made1559-1562
Period16th century
Medium and MaterialsPaper and ink
TechniquePrintmaking
Object TypePrinted Material
Object numberSF001134
Copyright Licence
Attribution - Non-commercial - No Derivatives (cc)
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The mug is decorated with an underglaze and a blue transfer print. On the body, it is titled ‘Emigrants to Australia’. This type of body and glaze was discontinued by 1840. Comparison of the handle shape and the profile of the foot, point to the attribution of manufacture by the Davenport Factory.
Delta was a ship-rigged vessel with two decks and three masts. It was built in Dordrecht, Netherlands in 1839 at the shipyard of Jan Schouten and registered in the same port. Its hull was constructed of oak and sheathed in ‘yellow metal’. Delta was owned by H. van der Sande at the time of its loss and was engaged as a cargo trader.
The Delta carried 29 crew and passengers, while sailing from Melbourne to Batavia in ballast when wrecked at Kenn Reefs on 30 May 1854 whilst under the command of Captain J.G. Kunst. This vessel loss supports the pattern of shipwrecks located on a well-travelled shipping route that was poorly charted until the mid-nineteenth century. The crew of the Delta could see four other shipwrecks at Kenn Reefs at the time of their vessel’s loss.
Important image of a ship associated with Matthew Flinders, that would shortly become one of the most famous early shipwrecks in eastern Australian waters. This is a fine ship’s portrait, by one of the great exponents of the art