File:A Herring Buss catching a large fish, circa 1600 RMG PW5522.tiff

In his 'Schilder-boeck', Karel van Mander gives a full account of Hendrick Vroom's colourful life up to 1604. He was born in Haarlem around 1566 and died there in 1640. Like his father he worked as a delftware painter, but soon travelled to Seville, Livorno, Florence and Rome where he was employed by Cardinal De Medici. He met and took lessons from the painter Paul Brill, and then travelled to Venice and Milan. On his way back to Haarlem he worked in Lyon, as well as in Paris and Rouen. He painted an altarpiece in Danzig and then set off for Spain, but was shipwrecked off the coast of Portugal where he then lived for a while. Returning to Haarlem he had a successful career as a marine painter, developing this new specialism which became extremely popular with ship owners and the citizens of the ports he portrayed. In the 1590s he worked for the English Lord High Admiral Charles Howard for whom he designed ten tapestries of the defeat of the Spanish Armada. At this time he produced many drawings which were also collected, and he also started making prints. This small drawing, recently attributed to the artist, follows the tradition of prints after Pieter Brueghel.