A copperplate engraving from the book titled, 'Plan de plusieurs b̢timens de mer avec leurs proportions dedi̩ �� Son Altesse Serenissime Monseigneur Louis Auguste de Bourbon' (Marseille: c. 1720) by the French Captain Henri Sbonski de Passebon. The book was a collection of naval architecture prints. This print depicts a ship portrait of a bomb ketch. A city is being attacked by a row of bomb ketches near the shore in the right background. Randon draws the arched projection path in which the shell travels from the ship to the city; pillars of smoke rise from the buildings. The rest of the background is filled up with the depictions of various war vessels such as frigates or ship of the lines and galleys.
Bomb ketches were armed with heavy howitzers or mortars and used for bombarding places ashore. The mortars were often fitted in ketches, either specifically built or converted from a small three-masted vessel into one by the removal of the foremast to provide adequate deck space for the mortars.
There is a watermark of a sun with a face, visible on the verso of the center left side of the print.
