Portrait of the 'Tiger' (1678), c.1681 (graphite, grey wash)

Creator: William Van de Velde, the Elder The ‘Tiger’ (1678), a fourth rate of 44 guns, was built in 1644, but rebuilt in 1681 when it is probable that Van de Velde made this drawing. He was present when Charles II visited the rebuilt ship at Woolwich in August 1681, before she sailed to the Mediterranean under the command of Lord Charles Berkeley. He made a series a series of over 80 drawings of the visit, now in the National Maritime Museum, the Boymans-van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam, the Rijksmuseum and the Scheepvaartmuseum in Amsterdam, and in a private collection or collections (two drawings, Sothebys, New York, January 2006). This drawing, which is heavily worked up in wash, is an ‘offset’, a kind of tracing made from another drawing. The drawing itself is heavily marked with an implement such as a stylus which indicates that an offset has been taken from it. Exhibited in Venice, 1986.