Carved in high relief and polished.

Encased in a 19th-century frame, which according to a label on the reverse comes from the company ‘G. Dorens & Zoon’ in Amsterdam. According to the 1786 inventory of the Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, the ivory was then encased in an ebony frame with ivory and boxwood ornamentation.

…; Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig, first documented in 1786;¹¹Listed in the 1786 and 1798 inventories of the ivory collection, C. Scherer, Die Braunschweiger Elfenbeinsammlung: Katalog der Elfenbeinbildwerke, coll. cat. Braunschweig (Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum) 1931, p. 25, no. 419. deaccessioned after 1798;²²Ibid. …; collection Daniel Franken Dzn (1838-1898), Amsterdam and Le Vésinet, date unknown; by whom bequeathed to the Koninklijk Oudheidkundig Genootschap, Amsterdam, 1898; on loan to the museum, since 1898

Object number: BK-KOG-1523

Credit line: On loan from the Koninklijk Oudheidkundig Genootschap

This portrait medallion of the youthful Prince William III of Orange is attributed to Joachim Henne (active c. 1662-1707) on stylistic grounds.³³J. Rasmussen and S. Asche, Barockplastik in Norddeutschland, exh. cat. Hamburg (Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe) 1977, no. 105 and note 3. He was an ivory-carver, probably from northern Germany, whose known works include a number of very closely related portrait medallions executed around 1663 in Hamburg.⁴⁴J. Rasmussen and S. Asche, Barockplastik in Norddeutschland, exh. cat. Hamburg (Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe) 1977, nos. 106-08. Both the variety of gestures made by Henne’s models and their settings of ornate interiors with balustrades and columns point to the influence of contemporary Dutch portrait painting. The Hamburg portraits also suggest a knowledge of Quellinus’s marble busts of Amsterdam burgomasters.⁵⁵See F. Scholten, ‘Quellinus’s Burgomasters: A Portrait Gallery of Amsterdam Republicanism’, Simiolus 32 (2006), pp. 87-125. It therefore seems very likely that Henne visited the Netherlands shortly before 1663. Prince William was approximately twelve-years old at this time, which indeed corresponds to the age he is portrayed here. If indeed Henne is the maker, he may have carved the relief while still in the Netherlands but possibly earlier in Hamburg. For this ivory portrait, he consulted Pieter Phillippe’s engraving of Adriaen Ragineau’s painted portrait of the prince (RP-P-OB-102.052),⁶⁶J. Rasmussen, ‘Joachim Henne, ein höfischer Kleinmeister des Barock’, Jahrbuch der Hamburger Kunstsammlungen 23 (1978), pp. 25-64, esp. p. 42. which also shows William holding a military baton, leaning on a plumed helmet, with the chain of the Order of the Garter, the highest English knightly order, worn about the neck. Henne also turned the upper torso slightly and modified the background.

By emphasizing the prince’s military status with the prominent commander’s baton, helmet and cuirass, this portrait ivory refers directly to Dieussart’s series of marble statues of the Orange stadholders in Huis ten Bosch Palace.⁷⁷C. Avery, ‘François Dieussart (c. 1600-61): Portrait Sculptor to the Courts of Northern Europe’, in ibid., Studies in European Sculpture, vol. 1, London 1981, pp. 205-35, esp. pp. 221-23. The portrait implicitly underscores William’s rightful claim to the position of stadholder, a role denied to him until 1672.

In the late eighteenth century, the relief formed part of the Braunschweig ducal collection, where it was described in the inventory as: ‘Portrait of a Prince of Nassau in half-figure. He supports himself with the left arm on a helmet and holds the military baton with both hands. In a black, wooden frame decorated with ivory and boxwood’.⁸⁸Porträt eines Prinzen von Nassau in halber Figur. Er stützet sich mit dem linken Arme auf einen Helm und halt mit beyden Händen den Commandostab. In einem schwarzen hölzernen mit Elfenbein und Taxusholze verzierten Rahmen; C. Scherer, Die Braunschweiger Elfenbeinsammlung: Katalog der Elfenbeinbildwerke, coll. cat. Braunschweig (Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum) 1931, p. 25, no. 419. The ivory perhaps entered the Braunschweig collection via Duchess Sophie Amalie (1670-1710), spouse of Duke August Wilhelm von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel: she was the daughter of Christian Albrecht, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp (1641-1695), for whom Joachim Henne probably worked as a court artist for a period of time.⁹⁹J. Rasmussen and S. Asche, Barockplastik in Norddeutschland, exh. cat. Hamburg (Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe) 1977, p. 374. For reasons and circumstances unknown, the relief left the expansive Braunschweig collection, eventually entering the possession of the Dutch collector Daniel Franken, who is likely to have encased the relief in the current, nineteenth-century frame.

Frits Scholten, 2025
An earlier version of this entry was published in F. Scholten, Gebeeldhouwde portretten/Portrait Sculptures, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1995, no. 21

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 266; Rasmussen in J. Rasmussen and S. Asche, Barockplastik in Norddeutschland, exh. cat. Hamburg (Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe) 1977, no. 105; J. Rasmussen, ‘Joachim Henne, ein höfischer Kleinmeister des Barock’, Jahrbuch der Hamburger Kunstsammlungen 23 (1978), pp. 25-64, esp. no. 1; J. Becker, Hendrick de Keyser: Standbeeld van Desiderius Erasmus in Rotterdam, Bloemendaal 1993, pp. 188-89; F. Scholten, Gebeeldhouwde portretten/Portrait Sculptures, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1995, no. 21

F. Scholten, 2025, 'Joachim Henne, Portrait Medallion of Prince William III of Orange (1650-1702), Northern Netherlands, c. 1662 - c. 1665', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035671