English Warships and a Moroccan chebec in Distress

The ‘roiling waters’ of the Rotterdam marine painter Hendrik Kobell II were popular and this painting was bought by no one other than stadtholder Willem v. Lightning has struck the Moroccan chebec and the flag of the English man-of-war hangs upside down from the snapped mast. The two countries were allies at the time. While Kobell had travelled to England on a study trip, he probably never visited the place of doom depicted in the painting, namely the North African coast.