The painting was commissioned presumably by Captain Christopher Gunman (1634–1685), who was commanding officer the Orange, 17 March 1666 to 19 January 1667. On 3 August 1666 Gunman, while commanding the Orange, was involved with the frigate Little Victory in a skirmish with two Dutch frigates. As reported by London Gazette (8 August 1666), both the Orange and the Victory were damaged, several crew killed and the captain of the Orange [Gunman] had ‘lost his left arm’.¹

It was formerly in the collection of the Gunman family and came to Doddington in the early nineteenth century on the marriage of Sarah Hussey Delaval to Christopher Gunman’s descendant, James Gunman. Oliver Millar, who inspected the picture at Doddington in 1952, noted: ‘a better picture of his action (3.VIII.1666) against 2 Dutch man-of-war off the Scillies; a little nearer Van de Velde, but the sea is weak and coarse’.² In January 1678 Gunman, who evidently has a keen interest in the genre, compiled a list of the naval battles depicted by Willem van de Velde.³