Support The plain-weave canvas has been lined. All tacking edges have been preserved and there is a selvedge at the bottom. Cusping and corresponding holes from the original stretching are present on all sides at intervals with a range of 10-14 cm, and there is a second series of somewhat smaller holes on all sides at intervals of approx. 4-5 cm.
Preparatory layers The single, light grey ground extends over the tacking edges, though only very slightly so at the bottom. It is composed of white pigment and charcoal black.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the tacking edges at the top and bottom and on the right, and over the one on the left. The present painting covers another one, a thin strip of which is visible on the left edge of the canvas, folded over the current stretcher. Infrared photography revealed that the earlier painting consists of a large, central figure seen in profile, gazing upward and to the left. The blue of the figure’s garb has become vaguely visible at the lower right, as is a red form at the upper left edge. Areas of abraded paint between the initial composition and the present one point to an attempt to erase parts of the former before starting work on the latter. Cross-sections of paint samples show that the present painting was executed on top of the first without any preparation by way of an intermediate layer. The composition was built up from dark to light, starting with a fluid contour sketch in brown, with additional modelling in red, umber colours and highlights. This undermodelling was left exposed in many places, allowing it to contribute to the spontaneous appearance, particularly in the upper reaches of the central celestial vortex. The final paint layers lend body through their opacity, as do the carefully distributed wet-in-wet blended accents of colour mixed with white to create salmon, ochre and light blue tones. Infrared photography revealed several compositional changes, such as the horn-blowing Fame at the upper right who initially held her head and instrument in a more vertical position.
Gwen Tauber [publication date 2026]

Good. The canvas weave has become distinctly visible due to lining. Small fillings and retouchings are scattered throughout.

…; purchased by Galerie Sanct Lucas, Vienna, 1937;¹¹Letter to the museum from Galerie Sanct Lucas, Vienna, 16 July 1974; file RMA. sold to a private collector, Klosterneuburg, near Vienna, March 1942;²²Letter to the museum from Galerie Sanct Lucas, Vienna, 16 July 1974; file RMA.…; with Galerie Sanct Lucas, Vienna, 1946;…; sale, Vienna (Dorotheum), 12 March 1974, no. 136, fl. 22,404, to the museum

Object number: SK-A-4654

The subject of this oil sketch is explained in an inscription on the back of one of the preparatory drawings that shows the young stadholder Willem III (1650-1702) taking leave of his grandmother Amalia van Solms ‘in order to go and follow in the glorious footsteps of his ancestors, as exhorted by Minerva’.⁵⁵Vienna, Albertina; illustrated in A. Roy (ed.), Theodoor van Thulden: Een Zuidnederlandse barokschilder (’s-Hertogenbosch 1606-1669), exh. cat. Den Bosch (Het Noordbrabants Museum)/Strasbourg (Musée des Beaux-Arts) 1991-92, p. 246. The Act of Seclusion of 1654, in which the States of Holland decreed that neither Willem III nor anyone else would be made stadholder, was rescinded in 1660 after the restoration of the monarchy in England. This meant that there was a new opportunity for the House of Orange to adopt the stadholderate from which it had been disbarred after the early death of Willem II in 1650. In April 1660 Amalia van Solms gave permission for her grandson, Willem III, who was still a minor, to be designated a ‘child of state’ by the States of Holland. His education and training for high office was to be supervised by a committee, but it had a short life, being disbanded in September 1661. The oil sketch by Theodoor van Thulden must be seen in the context of these dynastic ambitions and of Amalia van Solms’s efforts to revitalize the House of Orange. She may have ordered it, but it is also possible that Van Thulden made it on his own account in the hope of securing a commission.⁶⁶See B. Gaehtgens, ‘Amalia von Solms und die oranische Kunstpolitik’, in M. Schacht and J. Meiner (eds.), Onder den Oranje Boom: Niederländische Kunst und Kultur im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert an deutschen Fürstenhöfen, exh. cat. Krefeld (Kaiser Wilhelm Museum)/Oranienburg (Schloß Oranienburg)/Apeldoorn (Paleis Het Loo) 1999-2000, I, pp. 265-85, esp. pp. 282-84, for example, for a detailed analysis of the iconography.

Amalia, the widow of Stadholder Frederik Hendrik, who had died in 1647, is shown wearing mourning on a dais.⁷⁷This figure is not Willem III’s mother, Mary Stuart, because she had been buried in Westminster Abbey on 3 January 1661, so before the sketch was painted. The figure standing on her left is Authority, and in a niche behind her are two statues that probably represent the Orange and Nassau families. To Amalia’s right is Time behind an empty seat, probably a reference to the deceased Frederik Hendrik or Willem II.⁸⁸B. Vermet, ‘Van Thuldens historische allegorieën’, in A. Roy (ed.), Theodoor van Thulden: Een Zuidnederlandse barokschilder (’s-Hertogenbosch 1606-1669), exh. cat. Den Bosch (Het Noordbrabants Museum)/Strasbourg (Musée des Beaux-Arts) 1991-92, pp. 78-98, esp. p. 87. In the right foreground the helmeted Minerva, dressed in blue, is leading the young Willem III to an allegorical depiction of the United Provinces. The arched cornice of the gateway contains their seven coats of arms flanked by Labour and Vigilance slaying Envy.⁹⁹Not Hercules and Mars, as stated in B. Gaehtgens, ‘Amalia von Solms und die oranische Kunstpolitik’, in M. Schacht and J. Meiner (eds.), Onder den Oranje Boom: Niederländische Kunst und Kultur im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert an deutschen Fürstenhöfen, exh. cat. Krefeld (Kaiser Wilhelm Museum)/Oranienburg (Schloß Oranienburg)/Apeldoorn (Paleis Het Loo) 1999-2000, I, pp. 265-85, esp. p. 284, and elsewhere. For these personifications see Van Thulden’s allegorical drawing of the United Provinces in the Noordbrabants Museum in Den Bosch; illustrated in A. Roy (ed.), Theodoor van Thulden: Een Zuidnederlandse barokschilder (’s-Hertogenbosch 1606-1669), exh. cat. Den Bosch (Het Noordbrabants Museum)/Strasbourg (Musée des Beaux-Arts) 1991-92, p. 184, no. 36. Between them are the signs of the zodiac around the bust of a male figure, who may be a reference to the Union. The blank armorial shield below would have been intended for the Republic’s coat of arms of a lion rampant with seven arrows.¹⁰¹⁰See Van Thulden’s Allegory of the Succession of Den Bosch to the Union, Vienna, Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der bildenden Künste; illustrated in A. Roy (ed.), Theodoor van Thulden: Een Zuidnederlandse barokschilder (’s-Hertogenbosch 1606-1669), exh. cat. Den Bosch (Het Noordbrabants Museum)/Strasbourg (Musée des Beaux-Arts) 1991-92, p. 181, no. 35. Above the gateway Fame puts her trumpet to her lips and two winged figures hold laurel wreaths and a crown at the ready. The man standing in a niche at the top centre is probably Frederik Hendrik observing the apotheosis of his son Willem II from heaven, which is depicted as a piece of classical architecture. The three coats of arms on the drapery borne by putti in the middle of the composition are unidentifiable. At the bottom right there are some river gods, and in the left and middle foreground there are various allegorical figures dancing and kneeling, among them Fame, Poetry and Liberty.

This work fits within a group of drawings and oil sketches dating from after around 1655 with allegories illustrating the political significance of Amalia van Solms and events from the life of Willem III of Orange-Nassau.¹¹¹¹H. Schneider, ‘Theodoor van Thulden en Noord-Nederland’, Oud Holland 45 (1928), pp. 1-15; B. Vermet, ‘Van Thuldens historische allegorieën’, in A. Roy (ed.), Theodoor van Thulden: Een Zuidnederlandse barokschilder (’s-Hertogenbosch 1606-1669), exh. cat. Den Bosch (Het Noordbrabants Museum)/Strasbourg (Musée des Beaux-Arts) 1991-92, pp. 78-98, esp. pp. 86-90; B. Gaehtgens, ‘Amalia von Solms und die oranische Kunstpolitik’, in M. Schacht and J. Meiner (eds.), Onder den Oranje Boom: Niederländische Kunst und Kultur im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert an deutschen Fürstenhöfen, exh. cat. Krefeld (Kaiser Wilhelm Museum)/Oranienburg (Schloß Oranienburg)/Apeldoorn (Paleis Het Loo) 1999-2000, I, pp. 265-85, esp. pp. 282-85. There are two drawings made in or shortly before 1661 with a related iconography of the 10-year-old Willem, which probably represent an earlier stage in the preparation of the composition.¹²¹²Vienna, Albertina; illustrated in A. Roy (ed.), Theodoor van Thulden: Een Zuidnederlandse barokschilder (’s-Hertogenbosch 1606-1669), exh. cat. Den Bosch (Het Noordbrabants Museum)/Strasbourg (Musée des Beaux-Arts) 1991-92, pp. 244-46, nos. 70-71. Willem appears to be about 5 years old in a third sheet in London that is related in style and subject, so it is less likely to be directly connected with the Rijksmuseum oil sketch, in which he looks around 8 years old; London, Victoria and Albert Museum; illustrated in ibid., p. 214, no. 51. The Rijksmuseum painting is close in style to Van Thulden’s Alliance of Louis XIV and Philip IV of Spain of 1660.¹³¹³Paris, Musée du Louvre; illustrated in A. Roy (ed.), Theodoor van Thulden: Een Zuidnederlandse barokschilder (’s-Hertogenbosch 1606-1669), exh. cat. Den Bosch (Het Noordbrabants Museum)/Strasbourg (Musée des Beaux-Arts) 1991-92, p. 229, no. 61. For example, the nude dancing woman in the right foreground in that picture is repeated in mirror image in the left foreground of this canvas. There are a number of oil sketches and modelli by Van Thulden representing an early stage in the production of large allegorical or religious scenes, but the current one is not known to have been scaled up to a large format.¹⁴¹⁴See, for example, A. Roy (ed.), Theodoor van Thulden: Een Zuidnederlandse barokschilder (’s-Hertogenbosch 1606-1669), exh. cat. Den Bosch (Het Noordbrabants Museum)/Strasbourg (Musée des Beaux-Arts) 1991-92, p. 239, no. 66, pp. 251-53, no. 74. A related oil sketch with an allegory of Willem III which is attributed to Van Thulden that is likewise not known in a large format was in sale, Christie’s (New York), 12 January 1994, no. 74 (ill.).

Examination of the paint surface and infrared photography revealed that Van Thulden executed his sketch on top of a scene of what appears to be a kneeling woman with a blue cloak who fills almost the entire picture plane (fig. a). Her arms are spread and she seems to be approached from the left by a figure in a red cloak with its left arm outstretched. That composition is very probably connected with the monumental Christ Resurrected Appearing to the Virgin now in Paris that Van Thulden made as the high altarpiece for the Jesuit church in Bruges (fig. b).¹⁵¹⁵Musée du Louvre. The date of that altarpiece is subject to discussion. J.L. Meulemeester, Jacob Cocx: Een Vlaamse beeldhouwer uit de zeventiende eeuw, Bruges 2003, p. 91, refers to a document of 1642 mentioning a payment to Van Thulden for a painting made for the Jesuit church which has been associated with the altarpiece in the Louvre. That date was also adopted by J. Foucart, Catalogue des peintures flamandes et hollandaises du Musée du Louvre, coll. cat. Paris 2009, p. 278. However, there is a 1660 study for or after that altarpiece, so it has also been suggested that it was executed some 20 years later. The fact that the Rijksmuseum sketch is dated 1661 would support that hypothesis, because it is hard to imagine that the artist would reuse a 20-year-old canvas. For the 1660 study (Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst) see A. Roy (ed.), Theodoor van Thulden: Een Zuidnederlandse barokschilder (’s-Hertogenbosch 1606-1669), exh. cat. Den Bosch (Het Noordbrabants Museum)/Strasbourg (Musée des Beaux-Arts) 1991-92, p. 268, no. 134 (ill.). It is clear from the presence of cusping on all four sides that neither the current allegory nor the study of the woman beneath it were ever part of a larger canvas. The underlying scene is roughly one-third the size of the Paris Christ Resurrected Appearing to the Virgin.

Gerbrand Korevaar [publication date 2026]

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Roy in A. Roy (ed.), Theodoor van Thulden: Een Zuidnederlandse barokschilder (’s-Hertogenbosch 1606-1669), exh. cat. Den Bosch (Het Noordbrabants Museum)/Strasbourg (Musée des Beaux-Arts) 1991-92, p. 247, no. 72; B. Gaehtgens, ‘Amalia von Solms und die oranische Kunstpolitik’, in M. Schacht and J. Meiner (eds.), Onder den Oranje Boom: Niederländische Kunst und Kultur im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert an deutschen Fürstenhöfen, exh. cat. Krefeld (Kaiser Wilhelm Museum)/Oranienburg (Schloß Oranienburg)/Apeldoorn (Paleis Het Loo) 1999-2000, I, pp. 265-85, esp. pp. 282-84

1976, p. 538, no. A 4654

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2026, 'Theodoor van Thulden, Minerva Urging Willem III to Emulate the Glorious Deeds of his Ancestors in the Service of the Republic, 1661', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20015974