Prince Frederik Hendrik on Horseback

The support consists of a single oak plank with a vertical grain bevelled on all sides except the top. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1605. The panel could have been ready for use by 1616, but a date in or after 1622 is more likely. The ground layer, visible at the edges, is whitish. The painting was smoothly executed, with visible brushmarks in the sky and landscape. Highlights define the modelling of the horse. The contours of the horse seem to have been reduced on the left and right.

Fair. There is some cleavage around the head of the horse. The painting is abraded and has discoloured areas of retouching, particularly in the sky, while the varnish has yellowed.

...; sale, M.C. van Hall (†), Amsterdam (C.S. Roos), 27 April 1858 sqq, no. 105, as A. Palamedesz, fl. 80, to the museum;¹¹RANH, ARM, inv. 38, Kop, p. 187 (21 April 1858); RANH, ARM, IS, inv. 26, no. 93 (23 April 1858, no. 66); RANH, ARM, inv. 38, Kop, pp. 187-88 (29 April 1858); RANH, ARM, inv. 38, Kop, p. 192 (19 August 1858). on loan to the Rijksmuseum Muiderslot, Muiden, from an unknown date until 1980

ObjectNumber: SK-A-394

This equestrian portrait of Frederik Hendrik entered the museum in 1858 as a work by Anthonie Palamedesz, but was soon reassigned to Van Hillegaert.⁴⁴Coll. cat. 1887, p. 63, no. 501. The vertical composition with the rider prominent in the foreground on the dark crest of a hill, and a background with a low horizon, ties in with many of the artist’s other equestrian portraits (see, for example, SK-A-3125 and SK-A-4112). The execution, too, is typical of Van Hillegaert, particularly the way in which the modelling of the horse is defined, the background in green tints, and the schematic rendering of the soldiers’ lances. It is assumed that the city in the background is ’s-Hertogenbosch, with the St Janskerk vaguely visible between the horse’s rear legs. The painting can thus be dated in or a few years after the Siege of ’s-Hertogenbosch in 1629, which is not contradicted by the dendrochronological results.⁵⁵See Technical notes.

Another version, which is identical in its dimensions, composition and execution, is in a private collection.⁶⁶Dumas in Leeuwarden etc. 1979, p. 107, no. 111; illustrated in Briels 1987, p. 153, fig. 181. The latter work was auctioned in 1974 as the companion piece of an equestrian portrait of King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden.⁷⁷Illustrated in the catalogue for the sale, London (Sotheby’s), 8 May 1974, no. 138, pls. XX-XXI. It is doubtful, though, that they really were pendants, since the background figures differ too much in scale. It is more likely that the version of the present painting formed a pair with an equestrian portrait of Prince Maurits, both of which were sold together in 1967.⁸⁸Illustrated in the catalogue for the sale, The Hague (Van Marle & Bignell), 17 October 1967, nos. 215, 218, pls. 4-5. See also Leeuwarden etc. 1979, p. 106, no. 104. The figures in both works have the same proportions, while the horses face each other in similar poses. This makes it likely that the Rijksmuseum portrait also originally had a pendant in the form of a painting of Prince Maurits.

Yvette Bruijnen, 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. 125.

1872, pp. 155-56, no. 325 (as Anthonie Palamedesz Stevers); 1880, pp. 297-98, no. 347 (as Anthonie Palamedesz Stevers); 1887, p. 63, no. 501; 1903, p. 127, no. 1179; 1934, p. 130, no. 1179; 1976, p. 275, no. A 394; 2007, no. 125

Y. Bruijnen, 2007, 'Pauwels van Hillegaert, Prince Frederik Hendrik on Horseback, c. 1629 - c. 1635', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8684