A Dutch Squadron under the Command of Cornelis Simonsz van der Veer Carrying Out a Surprise Attack on Three Portuguese Galleons in the Bay of Goa Velha, 30 September 1639

Entry

This is Hendrick van Anthonissen’s largest painting by far, and is also his last known dated work. The fact that he was the artist was only discovered when his signature was revealed by cleaning shortly after the acquisition, and a little later the subject was identified by De Balbian Verster.³

The Dutch East India Company (VOC) fought bitter battles with the Portuguese in order to dominate trade with the East Indies. When Antonio van Diemen was appointed governor-general in 1636 he imposed an annual blockade near the Bay of Goa – the Portuguese headquarters in India – to make it impossible for their merchantmen to sail out. On 25 July 1639 a squadron of seven ships under the command of Admiral Cornelis Simonsz van der Veer departed from Batavia, followed by two yachts on 6 August. News reached the fleet, which had assembled just off Goa on 15 September, that the governor of the Portuguese post had died on 6 June and that his successor had sailed northward to put down an uprising by the local population. It was also rumoured that there were three unarmed galleons in the Bay of Goa Velha (Old Goa) by Fort Mormugao at the mouth of the river Zuari. Van der Veer decided to capture or destroy them in a surprise attack, which took place on 30 September. We are well-informed about the campaign from the journal of the admiral’s flagship preserved in the VOC archives.⁴ There are also two private eyewitness accounts, one on the Portuguese side, the other a Dutch report that was published as a pamphlet in 1640 and was also translated into English that year.⁵

In view of the large size of Van Anthonissen’s painting and its unusual subject, it is likely that it was made on commission. It is certainly odd that it was awarded so many years after the event, by which time the principal character, Admiral Van der Veer, was already dead. Given the accuracy of the picture and the detailed record of the fighting, the work must have been ordered by a person or body with some involvement in the action and was thus in a position to serve as a source of information for the artist. Van Anthonissen’s account is precise in both its broad outline and numerous details. While the other Dutch ships have already sailed into the bay, the Middelburch and Nieuw Haerlem in the left foreground, identified by their city coats of arms on the foredecks, are under fire from the fort. Both were heavily laden with trade goods, which is why they brought up the rear after the smaller vessels had hoisted flags to signal that there was safe passage to deep water. The Nieuw Haerlem was the flagship and is recognizable as such from the admiral’s pennant flying from the main topmast. But Admiral Van der Veer, who had initially sailed into the bay aboard the Zierikzee, can be seen here in a rowing boat, wearing his sash and giving orders with a gesture of his arm. The Dutch reports do indeed state that he commanded the action from a launch. Further off in the background are the cumbersome shapes of the three Portuguese galleons: São Boaventura in the middle, armed but not ready to sail, flanked by the Bom Jesus and the São Sebastião, which lay unarmed in the bay. Van Anthonissen depicted them without cannon, yards or sails, and they are being overmastered by Dutch soldiers clambering up over the hull to the deck from rowing boats lying alongside.

There are more details showing that the artist was very well informed indeed. The fact that the Middelburch anchored off the fort is described in the official record, while the statement that the guns from the two unarmed galleons were lying on the beach is mentioned in the Portuguese files. Van Anthonissen would also have been able to learn a great deal from an eyewitness, if there was one to hand, but he very probably just consulted written sources. It is not clear whether he saw a copy of the Portuguese report, but it cannot be ruled that the VOC archives had more accounts of the battle than have come down to us. All of them were secret, anyway, and only the company could have given permission for an outsider to see them. De Balbian Verster’s suggestion that the painting was ordered by the VOC is therefore plausible.⁶ His proposition that it was intended for a meeting room of its board is also very possible, given the work’s size, but cannot be verified. It is uncertain whether the directors or one of the six chambers of the corporation awarded the commission, and it is not even known precisely what was to be seen in the assembly hall of the VOC’s main office, that of Amsterdam.

The composition does not appear to have been copied directly from another visual source with a view of Goa Velha. The company’s chartrooms were anyway amply supplied with cartographic and other material that an artist could have consulted in preparation. A realistic depiction of the fort was evidently felt to be less important, for it appears to be a figment of the artist’s imagination.⁷

The attack was not depicted again until a good deal later, and without any attempt at topographical accuracy, by Jan Luyken in a print illustrating the account based on the Dutch pamphlet version in the second edition of Lambert van den Bos’s Leeven en daaden der doorluchtigste zee-helden of 1683. Luyken chose a different moment in the battle, namely the explosion of the São Boaventura.⁸ Although this painting is among Van Anthonissen’s last works, it is in an old-fashioned and slightly naive manner that was nevertheless very suitable for a narrative depiction of what was already almost a historical event. The fact that the artist had to place it in a setting that he did not know at first hand resulted in the landscape and the atmospheric effects being in a rather generalized and not very expressive style.

Eddy Schavemaker, 2022

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