Cast in plaster.

Good. Complete with corresponding frame.

…; collection Mozes Lodewijk de Pinto (1822-1892), The Hague; by whom donated to the Koninklijk Kabinet van Zeldzaamheden, The Hague, 1866; transferred to the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague, 1875; transferred to the museum, 1885

Object number: BK-NM-257

This series of six individually framed plaster medallions depicts a number of prominent members of the House of Orange and the Prussian royal family: the hereditary stadholder William V (shown here), his three children, Princess Frederika Louisa Wilhelmina (BK-NM-256), Prince William, the later King William I of the Netherlands (BK-NM-258) and Prince Frederick William George (BK-NM-259), as well as King Friedrich II (‘the Great’) of Prussia (BK-NM-255) and his successor Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia (BK-NM-254). The ensemble would probably also have originally included a portrait of Willem V’s spouse, Princess Frederika Sophia Wilhelmina of Prussia, which in that case is now lost.¹¹Until now the portrait medallion of her daughter was erroneously identified as being of the mother, cf. J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, p. 304. The Rijksmuseum owns the original wax model of the medallion of her brother, Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia (BK-NM-11002).²²In the Rijksmuseum inventory book, the arrival of three extremely damaged fragments of the wax model of Prince William V’s medallion (NM-11001) was registered, but their present whereabouts are unknown.

The modeller of the portraits, Johann Heinrich Schepp (1736-1806), was a gem-cutter and medallist of German origin. He officially entered William V’s service on 22 December 1783, as the court engraver and medallist.³³For Schepp, see A. Staring, ‘De medailleur J.H. Schepp en Frans Hemsterhuis’, Oud Holland 64 (1949), pp. 83-103; A.N. Zadoks-Josephus Jitta, ‘J.H. Schepp als gemmensnijder’, Oud Holland 65 (1950), pp. 193-97; F. Scholten, ‘Op zoek naar het schone. Neo-classicistische beeldhouwkunst in Nederland’, in F. Grijzenhout, C. van Tuyll van Serooskerken (eds.), Edele eenvoud: Neo-classicisme in Nederland 1765-1800, exh. cat. Haarlem (Frans Hals Museum; Teylers Museum) 1989, pp. 89-98, esp. pp. 89-93 and M. Scharloo, ‘Drie creatieve geesten. Neo-classicisme in de penningkunst’, in ibid., pp. 99-105, esp. pp. 99-101. Schepp also cut the portraits of King Friedrich II the Great of Prussia, his successor Friedrich Wilhelm II and a slightly different and mirrored version of the portrait of William V (NG-470) in semi-precious stone (carnelian), set in a golden ring.⁴⁴The gemstones with the portraits of Friedrich II and Friedrich Wilhelm II are in the Royal Collections (Koninklijk Huisarchief), The Hague, inv. no. XI-G-12, see A. Staring, ‘De medailleur J.H. Schepp en Frans Hemsterhuis’, Oud Holland 64 (1949), pp. 83-103, esp. p. 194, nos. 7 and 8 (ills.).

We do not know whether there had been a specific reason for William V to have the portrait medallions made. It might have been intended as a gift to his Prussian relatives. There were close ties between the two families, as demonstrated by Friedrich Wilhelm II’s resolute intervention a few years later, when his army invaded the Dutch Republic in 1787 to join the stadholder’s troops in crushing the patriotic revolution (cf. NG-VG-1-2940).⁵⁵Staring assumed, mistakenly, that the medallions depicting Friedrich II and Friedrich Wilhelm II were added to the series only in 1787-88. Apparently he overlooked the dating of 1784 on the latter medallion, see A. Staring, ‘De medailleur J.H. Schepp en Frans Hemsterhuis’, Oud Holland 64 (1949), pp. 83-103, esp. p. 100.

Other plaster casts of Schepp’s House of Orange portraits can, for instance, be found in the collections of the Geschiedkundige Vereniging Oranje-Nassau, the Gemeentemuseum The Hague and Huis Van Gijn in Dordrecht. The English factory of Wedgwood (NG-NM-252 and NG-411-A and -B) and a porcelain factory in Berlin or Loosdrecht (NG-NM-215) took them as examples for a series of medallions in biscuit ware.⁶⁶A. Staring, ‘De medailleur J.H. Schepp en Frans Hemsterhuis’, Oud Holland 64 (1949), pp. 83-103, esp. p. 49.

Bieke van der Mark, 2026

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 428, with earlier literature; E. Meyer et al., De gebeeldhouwde kop: De ontwikkeling van de gebeeldhouwde kop en het portretbeeld in Nederland van middeleeuwen tot heden, exh. cat. Nijmegen (Nijmeegs Museum Commanderie van Sint-Jan) 1994, nos. 37-42

B. van der Mark, 2026, 'Johann Heinrich Schepp, Portrait Medallion of Prince William V, Stadholder of the Netherlands (1748-1806), The Hague, 1784', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20056442