Object data
oil on copper
support: height 11.5 cm × width 8.5 cm
frame: height 15.5 cm × width 12.5 cm
outer size: depth 2.4 cm (support incl. frame)
Jacob Lyon
Portrait of Maurits (1567-1625), Prince of Orange
after c. 1612
Inscriptions
- signature, twice, on the reverse: Jacob Lyon pinx.t / J. Lyon
Technical notes
The support is a copper plate. There appears to be no ground layer, but a grey underpainting for the figure. Brushmarking is visible in the face and impasto was used for the highlights.
Scientific examination and reports
- technical report: W. de Ridder, RMA, 12 October 2004
Condition
Fair. There are a few minor losses, and abrasion throughout. The varnish has been unevenly applied.
Provenance
...; bequeathed to the museum by Arnoldus Andries des Tombe (1818-1902), The Hague, 1903
Object number: SK-A-2100
Credit line: A.A. des Tombe Bequest, The Hague
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Jacob Lyon (? Amsterdam c. 1587 - ? Amsterdam c. 1648/59)
Lyon was active in Amsterdam, where he completed some unfinished paintings by Abraham Vinck in 1620. In 1628, he painted Officers and Other Civic Guardsmen of the Xth District of Amsterdam, under the Command of Captain Jacob Pietersz Hooghkamer and Lieutenant Pieter Jacobsz van Rijn for the headquarters of the Amsterdam crossbowmen’s civic guard.1 This painting and the two copies after Van Mierevelt in the Rijksmuseum are the only known works from Lyon’s hand.
Jonathan Bikker, 2007
References
Thieme/Becker XXIII, 1929, pp. 494-95
Entry
The Portrait of Prince Maurits (shown here) is a small-scale copy of Van Mierevelt’s 1607 painting in Delft,2 of which there are many versions.3 According to a note at the Iconographisch Bureau, the Portrait of Frederik Hendrik (SK-A-2101) is a copy of a 1612 painting by Jan van Ravesteyn.4 Van Ravesteyn’s portrait is almost identical to the one made by Van Mierevelt in 1610, which is only known today through studio replicas and copies.5 Lyon’s copy showing Frederik Hendrik shares with Van Ravesteyn’s portrait the somewhat less voluminous lace ruff.
Copies after Van Mierevelt’s 1607 Portrait of Prince Maurits and his 1610 Portrait of Frederik Hendrik in the collection of the Mauritshuis belong to a series of six copies after portraits by Van Mierevelt of members of the House of Orange.6 The present two copies by Lyon might also have been conceived as part of such a series.
Jonathan Bikker, 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. 171.
Collection catalogues
1903, pp. 165-66, nos. 1494, 1495; 1934, p. 171, nos. 1494, 1495; 1976, p. 387, nos. A 2100, A 2101; 2007, no. 171
Citation
J. Bikker, 2007, 'Jacob Lyon, Portrait of Maurits (1567-1625), Prince of Orange, after c. 1612', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.7619
(accessed 15 November 2024 00:05:05).