Portrait of Willem II (1626-50), Prince of Orange, Gerard van Honthorst (workshop of), 1651 – (Gerard Van Honthorst (Gerrit Van Honthorst)) ◄ Previous Next ►

Artist: Gerard Van Honthorst (Gerrit Van Honthorst)

Date: 1651

Size: 111 x 86 cm

Technique: Oil On Canvas

This is one of several replicas of Gerard van Honthorst’s 1647 Portrait of Willem II and his Wife Mary Stuart (SK-A-871) in which the figure of the stadholder has been isolated and shown at three-quarter length.8 As discussed under Technical notes, the painting has been transferred to a smaller stretcher, and approximately 2 and 3 centimetres of the composition at the bottom and on the right side respectively have been folded over the edges of the stretcher. Part of the second digit of the date and the entire third and fourth digits are on the strip of canvas folded over the right edge. The transfer to a smaller stretcher probably occurred before 1858, as the dimensions given in the Rijksmuseum catalogue of that year correspond to the painting’s present dimensions, and only the first two digits of the date are recorded.9 Beginning with the 1880 Rijksmuseum catalogue,10 the date of the Portrait of Willem II has been read as 1661 and has recently led to the hypothesis that Willem van Honthorst was responsible for the painting’s execution as head of his brother Gerard’s studio after the latter’s death in 1656.11 However, although somewhat damaged, the third digit is more likely a ‘5’ than a ‘6’, and the date should probably be read as 1651. Stylistically, there is nothing about the painting to suggest the hand of Willem van Honthorst. While its stiff, rudimentary execution leads to the conclusion that the painting is a workshop replica, the new reading of the date indicates that it was produced during Gerard van Honthorst’s lifetime. A portrait of Willem II was transferred from the Admiralty of the Maas to the Nationale Konst-Gallery in The Hague in May 1800, together with portraits of William the Silent, Maurits and Frederik Hendrik.12 The portraits of William the Silent (SK-A-253) and Frederik Hendrik (SK-A-254) have been identified as the works by Van Mierevelt’s studio that are still in the Rijksmuseum today. The third portrait, of Prince Maurits, is probably the one now in Stedelijk Museum Het Prinsenhof, which was painted by Van Mierevelt (SK-A-255). For reasons set out in the entry on the Portrait of Frederik Hendrik (SK-A-254), these three portraits were probably executed around 1632. Moes and Van Biema considered Honthorst’s 1644 Portrait of an Officer (SK-A-176), which in the past has been incorrectly identified as showing Willem II, a potential candidate for the fourth portrait that came from the Admiralty of the Maas. That painting, however, was most likely part of another, very different, series.13 In addition, it has a panel support, instead of the canvas support of the three Van Mierevelt workshop portraits in the Admiralty of the Maas series, and is significantly smaller. The present picture, which unequivocally portrays Willem II and has apparently been part of the museum’s collection since at least 1801,14 does have a canvas support, and its dimensions are very close to those of the three Van Mierevelt workshop portraits. There is a distinct possibility, therefore, that the Admiralty of the Maas commissioned this Portrait of Willem II from Gerard van Honthorst’s studio in, or somewhat before 1651 to accompany the three stadholder portraits by Van Mierevelt’s workshop already hanging in its Charter Room. Jonathan Bikker, 2007 See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 148.