DOMINIC SERRES (AUCH 1719-1793 LONDON)

This lively painting is a version of Willem van de Velde's 1672 composition, now in the National Gallery of South Africa, Cape Town (inv. no. 53⁄48). A founding member of the Royal Academy in 1768, Serres spent much of the 1770s and 1780s painting the naval history of the American War of Independence. Freed from the constraints of historical documentation that these commissions carried, Serres' execution here is of a wonderful fluidity, perfectly capturing the theatre of van de Velde's original, which itself harked back to the stormy compositions of Ludolf Bakhuizen.