The support is a turtle-shell, the surface of which is visible at lower left. The painting seems to have been executed directly on the shell, possibly with an oil-based ground layer. It is rather coarsely executed with broad brushstrokes. Two iron rosettes with hooks at the top of the shell are the original hanging construction.

Fair. The keratin in the upper layer of the support has loosened in several bubbles, and the painting is abraded. There is a loss at lower left revealing the turtle-shell support.

...; sale, L.J.A. Scheltens van Kampferbeke (†), Rotterdam (Van Hengel et al.), 24 (25) July 1876 sqq., no. 144, to the museum

Object number: NG-NM-2970

This portrait of Frederik Hendrik on horseback is painted on a turtle-shell. The mounted figure was borrowed from a 1631 engraving of King Gustav II Adolf by Crispijn de Passe the Elder (fig. a). That was the third state of an engraving originally published by De Passe in 1600.¹¹For the first state of 1600 see Verbeek 1961, p. 81, fig. 15. Gustav’s face was replaced with Frederik Hendrik’s, and the background was changed into an undefined landscape in which only the silhouette of the St Janskerk in ’s-Hertogenbosch is vaguely recognizable.

This painted turtle-shell has been associated with Pauwels van Hillegaert,²²Coll. cat. 1976, p. 829, no. NM 2970. undoubtedly because it is in the same vein as his many equestrian portraits of Frederik Hendrik.³³See, for example, SK-A-4112. Although the differences in size and support make comparisons difficult, the rather coarse execution of the painted shell is too far removed from Van Hillegaert’s autograph works for it to be connected with him in any way. The fact that it is an almost literal copy of a print further complicates the attribution, so for the time being it will have to remain anonymous.

A turtle-shell is a very unusual support for an equestrian portrait, so this may have been a commission. The shield-like shape, with its associations with defence in warfare, is well-suited for a triumphant general or protector of the people. The painting can be dated in or after 1631, the year of the print on which it is modelled.

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. 434.

Van der Kellen 1879, p. 12

1976, p. 829, no. NM 2970 (as manner of Pauwels van Hillegaert); 2007, no. 434

Y. Bruijnen, 2007, 'anonymous, Turtle-Shell Painted with a Portrait of Frederik Hendrik (1584-1647), Prince of Orange, on Horseback, in or after 1631', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20029278