Three-Masted Ship Steering to the Right

This impressive bark (a kind of small ship) on roiling waves is part of a series of nine engravings of ships made by this unidentified master, who has been thought to be the goldsmith Willem vander Cruce, active in Bruges about 1465–90, where there was a major ship-building industry. Some of the prints in the Master W. with the Key’s ship series offer the earliest evidence of new technical advances developed in Bruges. The master is thought to have worked for the Dukes of Burgundy; these unpopulated ships could also depict sculpted table centerpieces from the lavish marriage feast of Charles the Bold, held in Bruges in 1467.