Prince Maurits at the Battle of Nieuwpoort, 2 July 1600

The oak support consists of three planks with a horizontal grain and is bevelled on all sides except the top. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1621. The panel could have been ready for use by 1632, but a date in or after 1638 is more likely. The ground layer, visible at the unpainted edge below, is whitish and thin. The underdrawing is partially visible, indicating that the composition was prepared with an elaborate, detailed preliminary design. The painting was smoothly executed, with visible brushstrokes for visual effects.

Fair. The varnish has severely discoloured.

...; sale, Madame Van Loon-van Winter (†) et al. [section Madame Van Loon-van Winter], Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 26 February 1878, no. 5, fl. 1,600, to the museum;¹¹RANH, ARS, IS, inv. 161, no. 232 (25 February 1878); RANH, ARS, IS, inv. 161, no. 233 (25 February 1878); RANH, ARM, Kop, inv. 39, p. 251, no. 20 (26 February 1878). on loan to the Oranje-Nassau Museum, The Hague, 1926-32

ObjectNumber: SK-A-664

Van Hillegaert depicted two of Prince Maurits’s martial exploits in his oeuvre: the disbanding of the Utrecht mercenaries in 1618 (SK-A-155) and the Battle of Nieuwpoort in 1600, the subject of this painting. Although the battle brought Maurits great fame, it was of little strategic value, for he was forced to retreat from the southern Netherlands after the victory, nullifying his success.⁴⁴On this see, among others, Israel 1995, p. 259; Erichsen in Munich 1980, II, p. 120; Noordervliet 1999, pp. 26-29.

In his characteristic way, Van Hillegaert shows the mounted Maurits in the left foreground on a dark ridge, behind which the battle unfolds in a panoramic landscape. The artist took great care over the scene, not just in the execution but also in the many anecdotal details, like the horse biting a fleeing man in the shoulder in the centre foreground. There is a certain ambitiousness in details like the foreshortening of the fallen soldier in the centre middle ground. The numerous lances in the background, which far exceed the number of soldiers and have a decorative function, can be regarded as the artist’s trademark, and are often found in his other works (see, for example, SK-A-155, SK-A-3125). The realistic, occasionally comical details recall the work of Adriaen van de Venne, who later depicted the same subject in a tapestry design.⁵⁵Royalton-Kisch 1987.

Dendrochronology of the panel has demonstrated that the painting can be placed late in the artist’s oeuvre. The earliest possible date is 1632, but it is more likely that it was executed in or after 1638.

In the estate of Anneken Hoomis, Van Hillegaert’s widow, was a ‘Battle of Flanders’ which she wanted to keep for herself and did not bequeath to her son and heir, Francois van Hillegaert.⁶⁶Bredius III, 1917, p. 829: ‘slach van Vlaenderen’. Unfortunately it is impossible to discover whether it was this painting.

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. 129.

Royalton-Kisch 1987, p. 73

1880, pp. 138-39, no. 136; 1887, p. 63, no. 497; 1903, p. 126, no. 1176; 1934, p. 129, no. 1176; 1960, p. 134, no. 1176; 1976, p. 275, no. A 664; 2007, no. 129

Y. Bruijnen, 2007, 'Pauwels van Hillegaert, Prince Maurits at the Battle of Nieuwpoort, 2 July 1600, c. 1632 - c. 1640', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6981