The veneration of naval heroes, who were held up to the populace as exempla virtutis, took on extravagant forms in the seventeenth-century Republic, with countless odes, pamphlets, biographies and painted or engraved portraits being produced to commemorate admirals who had died for their country. The fame of these men even equalled that of the Orange stadholders, thus explaining why the present statuettes – one of a naval hero (shown here), the other a stadholder (BK-NM-1005) – could both be found in the same series of military commanders. A small figure of the seated Prince Maurice (1567-1625) may also have belonged to that ensemble (fig. a). The series’ size and mediocre execution suggest that it had served a decorative function in some state chamber. In 1998, a smaller, polychromed wooden figure of a standing nobleman was sold in London. This work displays a striking similarity to the present figures and was perhaps carved in the same anonymous workshop.
Artistically, the commanders are not first-class portraits, but their form is particularly interesting. The men are depicted as standing rulers – a type of image that was rare in the Netherlands. The model for these full-length portraits were four marble statues of stadholders by François Dieussart, sculpted around 1647. Unique in the Netherlands, this earlier series of dynastic rulers had originally stood in the Oranjezaal of Huis ten Bosch Palace. After being moved to Germany in the eighteenth century, however, all four were destroyed during the Second World War. A polychromed wooden statue of stadholder William II in the museum’s collection, in the past also attributed – erroneously – to François Dieussart, follows the same general scheme (BK-NM-1007).
Frits Scholten, 2025
This entry is a revised version of F. Scholten, Gebeeldhouwde portretten/Portrait Sculptures, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1995, no. 15
