The "Parel" (Pearl), an East Indiaman and the "Dubbele Arent" (Spread Eagle), a West Indiaman

Nooms employed etching for fine lines and drypoint for richer, textured strokes, enhancing the tactile quality of sails, ropes, and water. The choppy sea and wind-swept flags convey motion through deliberate ink density and line variation. His technique avoids romanticism, favoring observational accuracy—each spar, flag, and wave is rendered with the clarity of a surveyor’s sketch, reinforcing the print’s documentary purpose.

Nooms, a native of Amsterdam, produced numerous maritime prints during the 1650s, often commissioned or circulated among merchants and naval officials. This print likely served both as a record of ship design and as a commercial product for collectors. Its survival in multiple institutional collections suggests early recognition of its value as a precise visual archive of Dutch shipping.

In the 1650s, the Dutch Republic led global trade networks, with fleets like the Parel and Dubbele Arent transporting spices, silver, and textiles across continents. Naval power and merchant efficiency were intertwined, and detailed ship imagery became a form of civic pride. Nooms’s work emerged within this culture, offering visual testimony to the vessels that sustained the nation’s wealth and influence.

Nooms’s prints set a standard for maritime documentation in the Netherlands, influencing later artists and cartographers. His attention to technical detail made his works useful references for shipbuilders and historians. Though not widely exhibited as art in his time, his prints endure as primary sources for understanding the design, operation, and visual culture of 17th-century merchant vessels.