Signed with initials 'WVV' on driftwood lower right, this oil by Willem van de Velde the Younger (Leiden 1633 – London 1707) shows The Fresh Breeze: the Dutch ship 't Wapen van Utrecht running before the wind, with other shipping.

The painting carries an exceptionally distinguished provenance, descending through the collection of the Earl of Lichfield (sold at Shugborough Hall in 1842) to Rev. John Lucy of Hampton Lucy, then via Thos. Agnew & Son to H.W.F. Bolckow, M.P., and subsequently to F.C.K. Fleischmann and Frederick Noel Ashcroft, in whose family it remained by descent.

The work is published in two of the foundational catalogues raisonnés of Dutch marine painting: John Smith's 1842 Supplement, which described it as 'of exquisite quality', and C. Hofstede de Groot's 1923 Catalogue Raisonné. Willem van de Velde the Younger, working alongside his father, was the pre-eminent marine painter of the Dutch Golden Age and later court painter to Charles II and James II of England.

Collectors of Dutch Golden Age marine painting, van de Velde family works, and paintings with a fully documented nineteenth-century English provenance will find this an exceptional, museum-quality example.