Decorative Frame with Four Portrait Medallions, Representing Stadholders William I (1533-1584), Maurice (1567-1625), Frederick Henry (1584-1647) and William III (1650-1701)

Entry

The present frame bears depictions of four Orange stadholders: William I, Maurice, Frederick Henry and William III. Adorning the pendant frame (BK-KOG-2451-A) are the portraits of four of their political adversaries of the Dutch States Party: the Grand Pensionary Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, the poet Joost van den Vondel, the see admiral Michiel Adriaensz de Ruyter and the statesman Johan de Witt. Inscribed in black ink on the reverse of each medallion is a known text or saying associated with the individual portrayed (see ‘Inscriptions’ above and figs. a and b).

The portraits are based on (engravings after) well-known paintings by artists including Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt (1567-1641). Contrary to what was previously assumed,¹ however, they are not products of the seventeenth century. The ivories and accompanying walnut frames, adorned with relief-carved foliate work, can be dated to the nineteenth century on stylistic grounds. A later dating is additionally confirmed by the presence of quotes by Willem Bilderdijk (1756-1831) on the reverse of the portraits of Vondel and William III.²

The frames almost certainly once belonged to the collection of Everhardus Johannes Potgieter (1808-1875), historian and cofounder of the literary magazine De Gids. In 1898, they were bequeathed to the Koninklijk Oudheidkundig Genootschap by Potgieter’s sole inheritor and sister, Sophie Potgieter. Brother and sister both remained unmarried and lived together.

Potgieter may possibly have commissioned the portraits on these frames himself, as he is known to have done in the past, specifically with reliefs bearing depictions of important historical figures, both in gold and in ivory (for a bracelet, whereabouts unknown).³ Potgieter idolized the history of the Netherlands, also pleading with his contemporaries to follow the example of their renowned forefathers from the Golden Age. He expressed this philosophy in an essay published in De Gids in 1844, relying on the Rijksmuseum’s collection of historical portraits, then as yet housed in the Trippenhuis on Amsterdam’s Kloveniersburgwal canal. It likely comes as no surprise that each and every ivory portrait, even if somewhat vaguely, can also be linked to paintings then on display in the museum.⁴ Potgieter may have commissioned these ivories simultaneously with the set of matching jewellery bearing images of famous Dutch women (BK-KOG-2654). The present medallions would then perhaps have been ordered for himself, as a kind of male ‘pendant’.⁵

Bieke van der Mark, 2025