The Golden Hinde off Ternate, 1579
The Golden Hinde is shown sailing off the volcanic island of Ternate in the Maluku Islands - the fabled Spice Islands - which Drake reached in November 1579 during his circumnavigation of the globe. The small English galleon, flying a ragged St George's cross, passes before the mountainous green coastline on a bright tropical day, her hull dark against the vivid blue of equatorial waters.
Drake's arrival at Ternate was a navigational achievement and an opportunity for valuable trade. The island's sultan, Babullah, was in conflict with the Portuguese and welcomed the English as potential allies. Drake took aboard six tons of cloves - a cargo worth a fortune in European markets - and promised ships for the Sultan in return: something he would never fulfil his part of. The Golden Hinde had already plundered the Pacific coast of Spanish America; the Spice Islands represented the next prize on a voyage that combined exploration, privateering and piracy.
The composition places the ship in profile against the towering volcanic landscape, emphasising the disparity of scale between the small Elizabethan vessel and the vast, unknown world she was navigating. A tiny ship, 18 months from home, at the far end of the Earth. Sold through Marine Artists gallery in 2025.
The research the painting was built on
For this painting, I visited the Golden Hinde replica in Greenwich, creating a few sketches on site of various details incuding the figurehead and rigging layout as well as taking several photographs. The scene was constructed from Drake's narrative of the voyage and a brief description of the Ternate visit on the Golden Hinde website. A mixture of photos and scouting around Google Maps provided the outline of the background landscape.
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