The painting ‘The Council of War of the English fleet under command of Admiral Edward Russell on the ‘Britannia’ before the naval battles of Barfleur and La Hougue, May 1692, against the French invasion fleet of Louis XIV, was commissioned directly from the famous maritime artist Willem van de Velde the Younger by Admiral Edward Russell, (1652-1727), 1st Earl of Orford.
As art dealers, we always look for masterworks, whether made by one of the great masters or a skilled but lesser- known artists. Over the centuries, that cultural heritage has been scattered across the globe, resulting in the search being a difficult process in practice. Preliminary work includes examining hundreds of auctions at home and abroad and, after careful selection of potentially interesting autions, the inevitable travel to the place the action is being held, say, Rome, Paris, Vienna, London or New York.
It is a time-consuming process that only yields success once in a blue moon. Upon arrival, the attribution might still turn out to be incorrect, or the painting may be more poorly preserved than initially thought. Nevertheless, fortune favors the bold or, in this case, those who persevere and that makes up for everything. For example, late last year we were able to add a magnificent maritime painting by Willem van de Velde the Younger to our collections.
It turned out to be a very special discovery and the painting was better preserved than we initially thought. Our search for the history of the masterpiece took us to the late 17th century and its owner at the time, Admiral Edward Russell, who had commissioned the painting directly from the artist.
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