William of Orange (1533-1584) on his Deathbed, Model for his Tomb Monument

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When Prince Willem van Orange died on 10 July 1584 at the Prinsenhof in Delft after a cowardly assault on his life carried out by Balthasar Gerardts, the States of Holland determined in consultation with the other provinces that the prince would be buried at the expense of the state with the honour befitting a man of his stature. On 3 August 1584, the prince was ceremoniously laid to rest in the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft. As a consequence of the war with Spain, however, there was neither the funds nor the opportunity to build a tomb monument at this time. Instead, a simple gravestone sufficed, much to the astonishment of an English visitor to the church in the year 1592, who described the scene as such: ‘the poorest that I ever saw for such a person, being only of rough stones and morter with postes of wood, coloured over with black, and very little erected from the ground’. No earlier than 1613, during the Twelve Years’ Truce with Spain, were steps first taken to rectify this deplorable situation. On 14 November of that year, the members of the States General came together to decide on the erection of a monumental tomb for William of Orange, almost thirty years after his death. This resulted in a succinctly worded decree, recorded in the States’ resolutions as follows: ‘Having seen several models, from which one could make the monument, tomb or grave in the highly esteemed memory of His Excellency in the name of the Republic of these United Netherlands [...]’.³ Commissioned to take on this highly esteemed project was the Amsterdam city sculptor Hendrick de Keyser (1565-1621), whose design for the grand princely tomb monument also included a baldachin made of multi-coloured marble. Below it lay two depictions of the prince: the first in marble, with an effigy of the prince lying in state; the second in bronze, portraying the prince as a military commander, sitting in a chair. For the first sculpture, De Keyser produced the present scale-model in terracotta, undoubtedly to be presented as a vidimus to those in charge of the project. The oak socle on which this terracotta rests, which mimics the form of the tomb in Delft, is a nineteenth-century addition.

The prince is depicted in a fairly unusual, realistic form, as if to suggest his appearance shortly after his death. This likely recalls the manner in which William of Orange lay in state from the day of his assassination up until his burial ceremony. He wears the tabard in which he was murdered, with his doublet half-unbuttoned and his arms positioned alongside the body. A sleeping dog lies at his feet – a traditional motif conveying loyalty and faithfulness. This unembellished portrayal of the dead body marked the introduction of a new iconography in Dutch tomb sculpture, culminating in a number of burial effigies produced shortly after the middle of the seventeenth century which show the deceased figure in his sleep. De Keyser chose to show the deceased prince lying on his deathbed, as if peacefully awaiting his eventual resurrection, without resorting to standard early-baroque stylistic elements that were part and parcel for Roman Catholic burial sculpture at this time.⁴

De Keyser’s work on the tomb monument in Delft brought him great posthumous esteem. His contemporaries voiced utmost praise for the sculptor. Explicitly honouring the sculptor as the maker of the princely tomb monument, the poet Jan Vos penned a brief tribute with the verse: Door ‘t Prinsegraf te Delft zal Kaizer endloos leven. During the last ten years of his life, De Keyser’s fame took on truly formidable proportions. In 1614, De Keyser not only received the commission for the prestigious tomb in Delft, but he was also approached by the city of Rotterdam to work on a highly exceptional project involving a monumental statue of Erasmus, to be executed in bronze. In 1619, he was engaged by the Danish king Christian IV, resulting in the making of nineteen sculptures for Frederiksborg Castle outside Copenhagen.⁵ Despite encountering problems with the (Protestant) Amsterdam church council stemming from his work on behalf of the (Roman Catholic) Sint Janskathedraal in Den Bosch, De Keyser still managed to complete and deliver an alabaster statue of St John the Evangelist. This sculptural work formed the focal point of the church’s choir screen, today preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.⁶ Following the sculptor’s death in 1621, De Keyser’s workshop was taken over by his son, Pieter, who was ultimately responsible for the completion of the tomb monument in Delft. Among the various items cited in the testament – dated 15 November 1621 – of De Keyser’s widow, Barbara van Wildere, one entry may possibly refer to the present terracotta model: ‘the model of the tomb of the aforementioned His Excellency of Orange’.⁷ While excluded in explicit terms from ‘all models, cartoons, sketches on paper, drawings and the sculpted models […] bequeathed by the deceased Hendrick de Keyser, his father’ to Pieter during his mother’s lifetime, the present terracotta nevertheless likely entered his possession following her death.⁸

At least three bronze miniature busts were cast after the prince’s face on the terracotta model.⁹ While all depict William of Orange with his eyes opened, the matching dimensions and the manner in which the head presses into the collar are characteristics confirm that these works are direct casts taken from the terracotta model of the deceased prince lying in state. Accordingly, one must conclude the closed eyes were modified prior to the casting of the wax model. These three bronze portraits were likely made in the De Keyser workshop, either during or shortly after the monument’s completion.

Frits Scholten, 2024