(Antwerp active 1633–1656)
A pair of naval battles of Lepanto between the Christian fleet under Don Juan de Austria and the Ottomans (1571),
the second signed lower centre: S. D CASTRO,
oil on canvas, each 120 x 166 cm, framed, a pair (2)  

Provenance:
sale, Christies, London, 4 February 1977, lots 106 and 107;
sale, Christie’s, London, 11 April 2013, lot 122;
Private collection, Belgium

The present dramatic depiction of a naval engagement, between Christian and Muslim galleys in the Mediterranean are a pair of characteristic works from the hand of the Flemish marine painter Sebastiaen D. Castro. Based on stylistic grounds, it appears Castro may have trained in the Antwerp workshop of Andries van Eertvelt (1590–1652), who like Castro found a strong export market for his works in Spain and Portugal, and often depicted scenes of Habsburg naval prowess in the Mediterranean, as reflected in the subject of the present pair of canvases.

Conflicts between Habsburg fleets, backed up by occasional Papal armadas, and North African corsairs, with larger scale Ottoman, and at times even French support, gripped the popular imagination throughout the Early Modern Period. Castro, who was likely of Portuguese Jewish origin, a so-called Marrano, who settled in cosmopolitan Antwerp to escape the persecution of the inquisition yet maintained familial and commercial ties back on the Iberian peninsula, would have had an acute sense of such maritime skirmishes. However, the naval architecture of the galleys in the present work, along with the arms and armour of the men of the Christian galley to the left, suggest Sebastiaen is alluding here to the Battle of Lepanto half a century or so earlier. For comparison, see the reconstruction of Don Juan de Austria’s (1547–1578) flag-galley the Real  in the Barcelona Maritime Museum. The times of day suggested by the lighting effects, early morning in one and dusk in the other, perhaps allude to the epic scale and duration of the famous battle.

Sebastiaen was likely the father of Laureys A. Castro, also an accomplished marine artist.