Portrait of Philips Willem (1554-1618), Prince of Orange

Entry

Philips Willem was the eldest son of William the Silent by his first wife Anna of Egmond (1533-58). In 1567, at the age of 13, he was kidnapped by the Duke of Alva and sent to Spain. After permission was granted for him to leave Spain in 1595 he returned to the Spanish Netherlands and regained possession of his property there and in France. As a Catholic and potential Spanish sympathizer, Philips Willem was distrusted by the States-General and it was only in 1606 that he was recognized in the Republic as Lord of Breda and Steenbergen. In the same year, he married Eléonore Charlotte de Bourbon, Princess of Condé (1587-1619). In 1608, the couple travelled to The Hague, where Philips Willem met his half-brother Prince Maurits for the first time. After making his ceremonial entry into Breda in July 1610, he resided there and in Brussels until his death in 1618.⁵

Philips Willem is shown knee-length, wearing the luxurious dress of a nobleman and a medal of the Catholic order of the Golden Fleece, which he was awarded in 1599. The composition with the sitter’s helmet on a table next to him was a standard one employed by an Mierevelt for military figures, although here it is unusual in that the table is shown to the left of Philips Willem and the sitter is not wearing a suit of armour. The column in the right background also appears in one of Van Mierevelt’s versions of Prince Maurits,⁶ but again on the opposite side. Another portrait of Philips Willem by Van Mierevelt shows him full-length, with his suit of armour on the floor to his left.⁷ Given Philips Willem’s controversial background, it is tempting to assign a political motive to the fact that he is not shown wearing his armour; Philips Willem never fought on the side of the United Provinces and he was viewed with suspicion in the north because of his Spanish, Catholic upbringing.

None of the known versions of Philips Willem’s portrait by Van Mierevelt are dated. The studio version in Delft⁸ was commissioned in 1620,⁹ that is to say about two years after Philips Willem’s death. An undated painting by Frans Francken II showing a ball at the court of Albert of Austria includes portraits of Philips Willem and his wife Eléonore de Bourbon.¹⁰ According to a 1744 auction catalogue, the ball painted by Francken took place in 1611.¹¹ In Van Mierevelt’s portrait, Philips Willem looks older and chubbier than he does in Francken’s painting, which suggests that he sat for the Delft artist sometime after he sat for Francken. However, the date given for the ball in the 1744 auction catalogue is by no means certain, and forms an unreliable terminus post quem for Van Mierevelt’s portrait. Francken, moreover, might have idealized his dancing subject.

The most logical occasion for Philips Willem to have sat for Van Mierevelt was during the prince’s visit to The Hague in 1608. While the prototype was most likely painted in that year, it has not been possible to determine which, if any, of the known versions was the prototype. The one in the Rijksmuseum might have been painted for Prince Maurits, and later transferred by Frederik Hendrik, another half-brother of Philips Willem, to Honselaarsdijk.¹² A poorly executed copy of Van Mierevelt’s Portrait of Philips Willem at auction in New York in 1984 was accompanied by a pendant showing Eléonore de Bourbon,¹³ and the Portrait of Philips Willem listed in the estate inventory of the Stadholders’ Quarter in the Binnenhof in 1632 was accompanied by a portrait of Eléonore de Bourbon as well.¹⁴ In all likelihood, Van Mierevelt’s original Portrait of Philips Willem also had a pendant.

Jonathan Bikker, 2007

See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
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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. 182.