The INVESTinART Collection · painting · 114,3 × 162,5 cm
The Battle of Lepanto, 7 October 1571
1590 Antwerp–1652 Antwerp
About the work
A monumental depiction of the Battle of Lepanto — on 7 October 1571, off the Gulf of Patras, the fleet of the Holy League met the Ottoman armada in the greatest galley battle in history, halting Ottoman expansion in the Mediterranean. Grand naval engagements of precisely this kind were the signature discipline of Andries van Eertvelt (1590–1652), the first Flemish marine specialist, whose storms and battles were admired already by his contemporaries. Retrospective renderings of the Lepanto victory ranked among the prestige commissions of 17th-century Catholic Europe; this large canvas is the oldest and most significant work in the collection.
Catalogue details
- Artist
- Andries van Eertvelt
- Year
- 17th century
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Signature
- unsigned; attribution label verso
- Dimensions (unframed)
- 114,3 × 162,5 cm
- Dimensions (framed)
- not stated in the catalogue — to be measured
- Provenance
- Art gallery, United Kingdom
About the artist
Andries van Eertvelt
1590 Antwerp–1652 Antwerp
The first Flemish painter to specialise fully in sea battles and storms: baptised in Antwerp Cathedral in 1590, a master of the Guild of St Luke at nineteen, active in Genoa in 1628–1630 with Cornelis de Wael — and portrayed by Anthony van Dyck himself, proof of the esteem he enjoyed among Antwerp masters. He trained the next generation of marine painters, including Gaspar van Eyck and Matthieu van Plattenberg.
The Battle of Lepanto was one of his celebrated, repeatedly painted subjects — other versions hang in the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent and the palace museum in Schwerin, which lends our large-format variant its art-historical pedigree.
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“The Battle of Lepanto, 7 October 1571” — Andries van Eertvelt