De Vlieger's spectacular painting of a shipwreck belonged to the Oudezijds Almshouse. This charitable institution provided food and peat to the city's poor and needy. In an inventory of the house drawn up in 1787 the painting is described as 'representing a Shipwreck and thus in a way the source of the poverty that we seek to combat in this house'. The dramatic scene, illustrating the moment just before the actual shipwreck, might also well be titled 'Allegory on the origins of peverty'. Simon de Vlieger came from Rotterdam. He lived in Amsterdam from 1636, and after 1646 in Weesp. He is reckoned to be one of the most important painters of seascapes and coastal views. His most famous pupil was Willem van de Velde the Younger.