The Vijverberg, The Hague, in Winter, with Prince Maurits and his Retinue in the Foreground

Entry

Prince Maurits is seen with his retinue and bodyguards against the backdrop of skaters on the frozen Hofvijver in The Hague. On the left are the buildings lining the lake, in the centre the houses on the Buitenhof and the Plaats with the tower of the Sint-Jacobskerk above them, and on the right Lange Vijverberg and a small part of the St Sebastian Civic Guard Hall.² On the civic guard parade ground in the centre (later Korte Vijverberg) is a procession of noblemen headed by Prince Maurits, with Prince Frederik Hendrik beside him on the right. Ahead of them are the bodyguards armed with halberds. The sumptuously attired lady on the left wearing a huke, a Flemish-style long hooded cloak topped with a sort of finial, and with her hands in a muff, may be Maurits’s mistress, Margaretha van Mechelen.³

The inclusion of portrait groups of contemporary dignitaries in a landscape is first found in a number of paintings by Adriaen van de Venne (among them SK-A-447, SK-A-676 and SK-A-1775). The painting discussed here is the first in a series of scenes in which Maurits, his half-brother Frederik Hendrik and his courtiers are portrayed on foot or on horseback near the Stadholder’s Court, the Hofvijver and the Binnenhof. A slightly later example, datable c. 1622-23, is Prince Maurits Accompanied by Prince Frederik Hendrik, Frederick V of Bohemia and his Wife Elizabeth Stuart, and Others, on the Buitenhof, The Hague (SK-A-452), which is attributed to Pauwels van Hillegaert.⁴ It has also been suggested that the figures in the summer scene, View of the Old Hof in The Hague, which is dated 1619 and is now in a private collection, are Prince Maurits and his courtiers.⁵ There are two other versions of this painting, of which the canvas in the Haags Historisch Museum in The Hague may have been executed by Van Breen in the same period as this one.⁶ The Hague version, which differs somewhat in the foreground details and the background ice scene, is a more colourful portrayal of the event than the Rijksmuseum painting, which has a thick, discoloured layer of varnish that makes it less attractive. In addition to the fairly loose manner seen in other works by Van Breen, there are the figures’ prominent broad, dark shadows on the ice in the foreground. The date 1618 on the painting stands in contradiction to the dendrochronology results, which indicate that 1620 is the earliest possible date of execution.⁷ The question arises, therefore, whether the Rijksmuseum painting is Van Breen’s first version of the subject or a later repetition.

It is likely that Adam van Breen came into contact with Prince Maurits in 1617 while preparing his military drill manual Die Nassausche Wapenhandelinge, which Van Breen published in The Hague in 1618. It is conceivable that the first version of this painting was commissioned from him in connection with the book, and because of Maurits’s 50th birthday in 1617.

Jan Piet Filedt Kok, 2007

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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. 32.