Object data
oil on canvas
support: height 133 cm × width 94 cm
outer size: depth 7 cm (support incl. frame)
weight 19 kg
Adriaen Hanneman
Portrait of Willem III (1650-1702), Prince of Orange, as a Child
1654
Inscriptions
- signature and date, lower left: Anº 1654, / Adr: Hanneman, F [...]
Technical notes
Support The plain-weave canvas, with an average of approx. 9 horizontal by 8 vertical threads per centimetre, has been lined. All tacking edges have been preserved. Cusping at intervals of approx. 13 cm is clearly visible at the top and bottom and on the right. Judging by the fine, local crack pattern the bars of the original strainer were approx. 4 cm wide.
Preparatory layers The single, thick, warm white ground extends entirely over the tacking edges on the left and right, and partially over the top and bottom edges. It contains minimal additions of earth pigment and splinters of charcoal black.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could not be detected with the naked eye, infrared photography or infrared reflectography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the tacking edges. For the first lay-in, a thin, translucent dark brown and more opaque earth colours were used. This undermodelling is most evident in the deep shadows and the general tone making up the orange tree, and its loose and sketchy lines are clearly visible to the naked eye in the apron, which has become quite transparent. The composition was built up thinly from dark to light and from translucent to opaque, with loose, evident brushwork. The background consists of two layers, the first leaving the figure in reserve and the second correcting its contours. The flesh tones were finely blended for accurate modelling. The sky was applied on the ground in one layer of white with blue pigment particles. At least one orange prepared in the undermodelling was not used in the final painting.
Gwen Tauber, 2022
Scientific examination and reports
- infrared reflectography: G. Tauber, RMA
- X-radiography: RMA, no. 761, 1 March 1955
- infrared photography: G. Tauber, RMA, 5 March 2008
- paint samples: G. Tauber, RMA, nos. SK-A-3889/1-2, 5 March 2008
- technical report: G. Tauber, 5 March 2008
Condition
Fair. The paint layers have become slightly transparent. They are abraded and have been flattened.
Conservation
- conservator unknown, 1955: cleaned; canvas lined
- L. Kuiper, 1970: two holes in the canvas (under the dog) repaired
- M. van de Laar, 1996: discoloured retouching corrected and revarnished
Provenance
? Commissioned by the Orange family as a gift for Elector Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg, the sitter’s uncle and guardian; first recorded in the Royal Palace, Berlin (Royal Collections of Prussia), 1779 (‘Eine kleine Prinzessin auf eine Distel tretend’);1 probate inventory, Royal Palace, Berlin, 1793, no. 10 (‘[...] junges Mädchen. Ganze Figur. 4⅓ x 3’);2 inventory of paintings, Royal Collections of Prussia, 1811, no. 4111 (‘Portrait einer Jungen Prinzessin’);3 recorded in the Royal Palace, Potsdam, 1896 (as Princess Albertine Agnes of Orange-Nassau, wife of Prince Willem Frederik of Nassau-Dietz);4 assigned to the State of Prussia after the abdication of Emperor Wilhelm II, 1918;5 Royal Palace, Berlin, until c. 1945;6…; or, ? collection Mrs Alexandra Zubkow, née Princess Victoria of Prussia (1866-1929);{R. van Luttervelt, ‘Drie portretten’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 5 (1957), pp. 108-13, esp. p. 109. …; from the dealer C. Reinheldt, Berlin, fl. 10,000, to the museum, through the mediation of G. Cramer, The Hague, 12 April 1955
Object number: SK-A-3889
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Adriaen Hanneman (The Hague c. 1603/04 - The Hague 1671)
The age of 43 inscribed on Adriaen Hanneman’s self-portrait of 1647 means that his year of birth must have been 1603 or 1604. He was born into a family of Catholics. His father Jan held various official posts in the service of the county of Holland. In 1619 Adriaen enrolled in his hometown The Hague as a pupil of Anthony van Ravesteyn, a younger brother of the far better-known artist Jan van Ravesteyn. His earliest dated painting, which is in the style of his teacher’s circle, shows that he had finished his apprenticeship by 1625. The following year he left for London, where Daniel Mijtens, also from The Hague, was a leading portraitist. It is thought that Hanneman became his assistant, which is made all the more likely by the fact that there is not a single signed work from his English period until around 1632. After that Hanneman may have been active in the studio of Anthony van Dyck, who settled in London in the spring of 1632, for the Flemish master was of great inspiration to him. In 1630 he married Elizabeth Wilson, who probably died a few years later.
Hanneman was back in The Hague around 1638, and shortly afterwards his wedding to Maria van Ravesteyn, a daughter of Jan van Ravesteyn, took place. It seems that he was doing well financially, for in 1641 he bought a house in Nobelstraat, a very respectable address. However, he did not start receiving really important commissions until exiles from England began arriving in The Hague to escape the Civil War and the unrest that followed the beheading of King Charles I in 1649. One of his clients was the future Charles II. Van Dyck’s influence on his painting made Hanneman an important Dutch representative of the international style that was highly popular in The Hague and elsewhere. He trained at least ten pupils. Given his reputation, he was the obvious person to become the first dean of the artists’ society Confrerie Pictura founded in 1656. As he had formerly done in the Guild of St Luke, he served several terms as its warden (1661-64 and 1667-69) and dean (1656-59 and 1664-66).
Hanneman’s output began to fall off after 1660, due to the return home of his English patrons after the Restoration, and the death of Mary Stuart, the dowager of Prince Willem II of Orange who had ordered many works from him, in that year. The artist was also experiencing competition from rising stars like Jan de Baen and Caspar Netscher. In 1669 he married for the third time, his new wife being Alida Besemer, but she died soon afterwards.
In addition to portraits, which make up the bulk of his oeuvre, Hanneman painted history pieces, although few have survived. In the Old Town Hall in The Hague there is an overmantel dated 1644 of an Allegory of Justice which was enlarged by Jacob de Wit during renovation in 1736.7 The Allegory of Peace in the assembly room of the States of Holland, now the residence of the First Chamber of the Dutch parliament, is from 20 years later.8 However, it is known from details of auctions and archival sources that Hanneman produced more works of this kind. His last picture bearing the year of execution is a 1669 likeness of himself. He died in July 1671 and was buried on 11 July in the Kloosterkerk in The Hague.
Richard Harmanni, 2022
References
C. de Bie, Het gulden cabinet van de edel vrij schilder const, inhoudende den lof vande vermarste schilders, architecte, beldthowers ende plaetsnijders van deze eeuw, Antwerp 1662, p. 412; J. van Gool, De nieuwe Schouburg der Nederlantsche kunstschilders en schilderessen: Waer in de levens- en kunstbedryven er tans levende en reets overleedene schilders, die van Houbraken, noch eenig ander schryver, zyn aengeteekend, verhaelt worden, I, The Hague 1750, pp. 24-28; P. Terwesten, Register off Aanteekeninge zo van de Deekens, Hoofdluijden en Secretarissen der Kunst-Confrerie Kamer van Pictura […], The Hague 1776 (unpub. manuscript in The Hague City Archives; copy in RKD), p. 6; F.D.O. Obreen, Archief voor Nederlandsche kunstgeschiedenis: Verzameling van meerendeels onuitgegeven berichten en mededeelingen betreffende Nederlandsche schilders, plaatsnijders, beeldhouwers, bouwmeesters, juweliers, goud- en zilverdrijvers [enz.], III, Rotterdam 1880-81, pp. 258, 277; ibid., IV, 1881-82, passim; ibid., V, 1882-83, passim; A. Bredius and E.W. Moes, ‘Adriaen Hanneman’, Oud Holland 14 (1896), pp. 203-18; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstler-Lexikon, II, Leipzig/Vienna 1910, pp. 646-47; Schneider in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XV, Leipzig 1922, p. 592; M. Toynbee, ‘Adriaen Hanneman and the English Court in Exile’, The Burlington Magazine 92 (1950), pp. 73-80; M. Toynbee, ‘Adriaen Hanneman and the English Court in Exile: A Further Note’, The Burlington Magazine 100 (1958), pp. 248-50; O. ter Kuile, Adriaen Hanneman (1604-1671): Een Haags portretschilder, diss. Utrecht University 1976, pp. 9-12, 27; Ekkart in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, XIV, New York 1996, pp. 139-40; Ekkart in E. Buijsen et al., Haagse schilders in de Gouden Eeuw: Het Hoogsteder Lexicon van alle schilders werkzaam in Den Haag 1600-1700, exh. cat. The Hague (Haags Historisch Museum) 1998-99, pp. 155-59; E. Löffler, ‘Illustrated Index on Painters Active in The Hague between 1600-1700’, in ibid., pp. 281-362, esp. p. 312; Ekkart in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, LXIX, Munich/Leipzig 2010, p. 129
Entry
The future was looking grim for the House of Orange when Adriaen Hanneman painted this 1654 portrait of Prince Willem III. The boy had been born on 14 November 1650, eight days after the death of his father Willem II, who had ruled as stadholder. Infuriated by the latter’s dynastic ambitions and the power struggle they had unleashed, the States of Holland seized the opportunity in January 1651 not to appoint a successor. That decision was enshrined in law in 1654 under pressure from England, which was republican at the time, by the adoption of the Act of Seclusion, whereby the Oranges were permanently excluded from the stadholdership of the province of Holland. This made it extremely important for Willem III’s grandmother Amalia van Solms and his mother Mary Stuart to keep the young prince’s existence alive in the minds of influential members of the family by sending them his likeness.9 This was for example the case with three known replicas of a portrait historié datable to 1653 from Gerard van Honthorst’s studio, in which he is depicted as Apollo out hunting, as well as a variant of the scene.10 As in the present painting, Willem III is shown with the blue ribbon of the Order of the Garter, which was conferred on him in 1653 by his uncle Charles II of England, who was living in exile. Here he is holding an orange hanging on a small tree in an ornamental pot in a reference to the House of Orange. The thistles protruding from underneath his skirt also have a heraldic, dynastic connotation, for they are the symbol of the Stuart family to which Willem’s mother belonged.
Starting in the second half of the eighteenth century, the sitter was long regarded as a princess because of the dress, though the flat plumed cap indicates that it is a boy. Bredius and Moes followed suit at first, and saw this as a portrait of Princess Albertine Agnes, who was later to marry Willem Frederik of Nassau-Dietz.11 Moes corrected this error in 1905.12 The identification is confirmed by an engraving after a design by Arnold Houbraken based on a painting by Jan Jacobsz van Houten.13
The young prince is one of the very few children portrayed by Hanneman.14 The composition is related to that of a picture which the artist’s shining light, Anthony van Dyck, made of the youthful Willem II around 1630 (fig. a). Like the Flemish master, Hanneman painted the sitter full-length and wearing a dress, which was standard attire for boys up until the age of 6 or thereabouts. In both cases they are placed in front or to one side of a pilaster or column. Hanneman gave Willem III a slightly more static pose than Van Dyck’s Willem II, whose head is turned more sharply and who is gesturing forward with his right arm, the effect of which is reinforced by the pointed head of the greyhound looking in the opposite direction. In the Rijksmuseum canvas, though, the dog, in excited anticipation of what the prince is going to do next, adds some liveliness to the scene. Compared to the Van Dyck, the brushwork is much smoother, although Hanneman employed the artist’s looser manner, as he also did in his likeness of the Duke of Gloucester from the same period.15 The dynastic symbol of the orange tree is far more prominent here than in the portrait of Willem II. As outlined above, that was entirely due to the critical situation in which the House of Orange found itself at the time. Until the 1950s there was a variant of the present canvas in the collection of Lady Tempest at Broughton Hall, Skipton (Yorkshire).16
Richard Harmanni, 2022
See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements
Literature
O. ter Kuile, Adriaen Hanneman (1604-1671): Een Haags portretschilder, diss. Utrecht University 1976, p. 82, no. 25, with earlier literature; J.B. Bedaux, The Reality of Symbols: Studies in the Iconology of Netherlandish Art, 1400-1800, The Hague/Maarssen 1990, p. 132; Ekkart in E. Buijsen et al., Haagse schilders in de Gouden Eeuw: Het Hoogsteder Lexicon van alle schilders werkzaam in Den Haag 1600-1700, exh. cat. The Hague (Haags Historisch Museum) 1998-99, pp. 156, 158; Erkelens in M. Schacht and J. Meiner (eds.), Onder den Oranje Boom: Niederländische Kunst und Kultur im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert an deutschen Fürstenhöfen, exh. cat. Krefeld (Kaiser Wilhelm Museum)/Oranienburg (Schloß Oranienburg)/Apeldoorn (Paleis Het Loo) 1999-2000, II, p. 404, no. 14.1; Bedaux in J.B. Bedaux and R.E.O. Ekkart (eds.), Pride and Joy: Children’s Portraits in the Netherlands 1500-1700, exh. cat. Haarlem (Frans Hals Museum)/Antwerp (Royal Museum of Fine Arts) 2000-01, pp. 234-35, no. 62; M. Spliethoff, ‘Bilder von Glück und Unglück: Die Porträtmalerei am Hof des Statthalters in Den Haag 1625-1655’, in R. Alex and I. Pfeifer, Oranienbaum − Huis van Oranje: Wiedererweckung eines anhaltischen Fürstenschlosses: Oranische Bildnisse aus fünf Jahrhunderten, exh. cat. Oranienbaum (Schloss Oranienbaum) 2003, pp. 132-41, esp. pp. 138-39
Collection catalogues
1976, p. 259, no. A 3889
Citation
Richard Harmanni, 2022, 'Adriaen Hanneman, Portrait of Willem III (1650-1702), Prince of Orange, as a Child, 1654', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8619
(accessed 19 September 2024 18:31:07).