Princes Maurits and Frederik Hendrik on Horseback

The plain-weave canvas support has been lined. Cusping is visible at the lower edge. The canvas insert at top right was possibly added when the original canvas was separated from the wooden support, since in the 1754 inventory (listed under Provenance) the painting is described as canvas glued to wood. The ground layer, visible along the bottom edge, is light-coloured. There may be a brownish imprimatura for the foreground landscape. The paint was smoothly applied, with visible broad brushmarks in the foreground.

Fair. There is a canvas insert in the sky at top right, along the contour of Frederik Hendrik’s hat. There are several discoloured areas of retouching, and the varnish has yellowed considerably.

...; estate inventory, Binnenhof, The Hague, 1754, first chamber of the appartments (‘19. Un autre sur toile collée surbois, représentant deux princes d’Orange à cheval et dans le fond le siège d’une ville, largueur 3 pieds 8 pouces, hauteur 2 pieds 8 pouces [105.5 x 77.2 cm]’);¹¹Drossaers/Lunsingh Scheurleer II, 1974, p. 479, no. 19....; estate inventory, Stadholder’s Court, The Hague, 1763 (‘In het kabinetje van zijne hoogheit den hertogh van Wolfenbuttel, een stuk zijnde het portrait van prins Maurits en prins Frederik Hendrik te paert, in het verschiet de belegering van ’s-Hertogenbosch, de portraiten door Mierevelt, het bijwerk door een ander, in een slegte bruine lijst met gout, 2 V 8.5 D hoogte, 3 V 8.5 D breete [78.5 x 106.8 cm]’);²²Drossaers/Lunsingh Scheurleer III, 1976, p. 21, no. 47....; first recorded in the museum in January 1800;³³Moes/Van Biema 1909, pp. 167, 201; Van Thiel 1981a, p. 205, no. 155. on loan to the Rijksmuseum Muiderslot, Muiden, since 1981

ObjectNumber: SK-A-568

In addition to individual equestrian portraits of princes Maurits and Frederik Hendrik (SK-A-3125, SK-A-394, SK-A-4112). Van Hillegaert also depicted the two men on horseback together, as in this painting. They are composed in the same way as the individual portraits, with the riders shown prominently on a dark, elevated foreground against a background with a low horizon and populated with small figures. Here the two commanders are shown as victors in front of an army camp on a spot that is impossible to pinpoint geographically. That this is not the depiction of a specific victory is clear from the fact that the artist did not portray the substantial age difference between the two men. Maurits’s white horse looks like the white warhorse presented to him after the Battle of Nieuwpoort in 1600, which is probably portrayed in another of Van Hillegaert’s equestrian portraits (SK-A-3125).

There are other versions of this particular painting, including a smaller one on panel in the Prinsenhof in Delft (fig. a). None of them are signed, but the obvious similarity to Van Hillegaert’s individual equestrian portraits leaves no doubt that they should be placed in his circle. His authorship is suspect in this particular painting, however. The execution of the horses, for example, in which his distinctive modelling with visible brushstrokes is lacking, differs from that of the securely attributed works, which suggests that this is a workshop piece.

The compositional scheme of the riders facing each other is derived from a 16th-century tapestry series illustrating the genealogy of the House of Nassau, which was woven after designs by Bernard van Orley, each one showing two princes.⁶⁶See Fock 1969 for this series. At the beginning of the 17th century, Prince Maurits was given the painted tapestry patterns, and according to Van Mander commissioned oil paintings to be made after them.⁷⁷Van Mander 1604, fol. 211; Fock 1969, p. 17. Then, in 1632, Frederik Hendrik had new tapestries made from the designs for Paleis Noordeinde.⁸⁸Fock 1969, p. 18. It is not inconceivable that the tapestries influenced the composition of this painting, which would argue for a date after 1632. The similarities to Van Hillegaert’s equestrian portraits of Frederik Hendrik that can be dated after 1629 (for example, SK-A-394 and SK-A-4112) suggest that this double portrait was executed around 1630-35.

In 1754 the painting was in the Binnenhof,⁹⁹Drossaers/Lunsingh Scheurleer II, 1974, p. 479, no. 19. but by 1763 it had been moved to the Stadholder’s Court in The Hague, when it was still being attributed to Van Mierevelt.¹⁰¹⁰Drossaers/Lunsingh Scheurleer III, 1976, p. 21, no. 47. It is not inconceivable, then, that it originally belonged to Frederik Hendrik.

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. 131.

Fock 1969, p. 19; Dumas in Leeuwarden etc. 1979, p. 109, no. 129; Van Thiel 1981a, p. 205, no. 155; coll. cat. Muiden 1989, no. 21; Van Maarseveen 1998a, pp. 84, 103

1801, p. 51, no. 147 (as Jan Marsse de Jonge); 1843, p. 75, no. 384 (as Anonymous; ‘in good condition’); 1880, p. 323, no. 376 (as Adriaen van de Venne); 1887, p. 177, no. 1523 (as Adriaen van de Venne); 1902, p. 127, no. 1183 (as circle of Van Hillegaert); 1934, p. 130, no. 1183 (as circle of Van Hillegaert); 1976, p. 276, no. A 568; 1992, p. 57, no. A 568; 2007, no. 131

Y. Bruijnen, 2007, 'workshop of Pauwels van Hillegaert, Princes Maurits and Frederik Hendrik on Horseback, c. 1630 - 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.6935