Portrait of Vice-Admiral Michiel de Ruyter (1607-1676)

Entry

Upon establishing himself in the Dutch Republic shortly before 1650, Rombout Verhulst (1624-1698) evolved to become the most important sculptor of funerary monuments, portrait busts and garden sculpture in the Northern Netherlands. Verhulst’s qualities in the first two genres are clearly demonstrated in this portrait study of the greatest naval hero of the Netherlands, Michiel de Ruyter. The terracotta bust shows the vice-admiral with his eyes closed, ostensibly shortly after dying in a battle against the French fleet at Syracuse in 1676.

Michiel de Ruyter, nicknamed ‘Bestevâer’ (grandfather), is generally viewed as the leading sea admiral of his day. Besides playing a prominent role in the first three Anglo-Dutch wars, he took part in various naval operations in the Baltic Sea and against pirates active in the Mediterranean Sea. Starting out as a simple cabin boy from Vlissingen and rising up to become the Dutch Republic’s most senior and most successful navy officer, the course of Michiel de Ruyter’s career contributed greatly to his legendary status.

De Ruyter first sailed to sea at the age of eleven. Later captured and imprisoned by the Spaniards on another voyage, he and a couple of his fellow shipmates managed to escape and return to their home country. By the age of fifteen, De Ruyter had already been promoted to the rank of captain, the highest non-commissioned officer’s rank on a ship.

After initially having sailed on private merchant ships as well as his own ship – engaged in business that took him to Morocco and elsewhere – De Ruyter’s military career began when he was given command of a private navy squadron from Zeeland that engaged in a sea battle against the British, ultimately leading to the defeat of the English admiral Ayscue at Plymouth in 1652. From that moment on, he was celebrated as a naval hero who took part in every major military confrontation at sea against the English. Following the death of Admiral Van Wassenaer-Obdam in 1665 at the Battle of Lowestoft – a confrontation that resulted in heavy losses for the Dutch fleet – De Ruyter assumed the high command. With the support of Pensionary of State Johan de Witt, he set out to thoroughly modernise the Dutch fleet. With his flagship De Zeven Provinciën, De Ruyter managed to atone for the loss experienced at Lowestoft by achieving a victory for the Dutch during the Four Days’ Battle (11-14 June 1666). Through his valorous deeds in the battle against the English, Michiel de Ruyter received the Knight’s Order of St Michael from the French king, Louis XIV. In 1667, De Ruyter commanded the renowned Raid on the Medway, the first time marines were deployed under the command of Vice-Admiral van Ghent (cf. BK-NM-13151). The English fleet and various coastal fortifications sustained heavy damage, with the British flagship, the Royal Charles, seized by the Dutch fleet and taken as war booty to the Netherlands. After 1672, the Dutch Republic was at war with France, with De Ruyter undertaking repeated military advances against the French fleet. In 1676, the admiral succumbed one week after having sustained wounds from cannon shot off the coast of Sicily. De Ruyter’s embalmed body was to be shipped back to the Dutch Republic, but with the fleet forced to remain in Mediterranean waters, not until 16 February 1677 did his body actually arrive in Amsterdam. On 18 March 1677, De Ruyter was buried in a place of honour in the chancel of the Nieuwe Kerk. The funeral in the city proved to be an enormous spectacle, featuring a long procession. Sometime after, the States General commissioned the sculptor Rombout Verhulst to design a monumental tomb. Having the form of a large-scale altar, the tomb was completed in 1681.

Verhulst made this post mortem facial study in preparation for this large-scale enterprise. To this end he seems to have used a death mask of De Ruyter as a mould for his face and neck,² carefully reworking the clay surface while it was still wet, resulting in one of the most sensitive and ‘true to life’ portrayals ever achieved in the sculptor’s oeuvre. It also corresponds precisely with the marble portrait adorning De Ruyter’s tomb monument in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam. Nevertheless, the present terracotta bust would not have functioned as the modello for this sculpture: according to custom, there is no doubt Verhulst worked instead with a plaster portrait model cast after this terracotta face. In addition to complete models of the planned tomb monument – to be implemented as a vidimus for showing his design to the commissioning party (cf. BK-NM-4352) – the sculptor resorted to various terracotta portrait studies reflecting the evolving representations of the deceased subjects adorning his funerary monuments. In addition to the present terracotta depiction of De Ruyter, a similar death portrait of the face of naval hero Willem van Ghent also survives (BK-NM-13151), along with the two portrait studies of husband and wife Van Liere-Van Reygersbergh (BK-NM-11957-A and -B). Such funerary portrait studies were often passed on to the patron upon the tomb’s completion. Verhulst’s will and testament of 1692, however, indicates that he also kept such terracottas for himself on occasion. Clearly stipulated, for example, is that the sculptor’s ‘small clay and plaster sculptures of epitaphs’³ were to be bequeathed to an (otherwise unknown) apprentice, Johan der Heijden. Also cited is that ‘the modelled portrait of the deceased d’Heer Admirael de Ruijter, formed from terracotta’,⁴ was destined for Matthaeus Gool (d. 1702), first counsel to the court of Holland, Zeeland and West Friesland in The Hague. This latter citation may very well concern the present terracotta portrait, of which the provenance before 1801 is unknown.

Frits Scholten, 2024