Jan Adam Kruseman

In 1833 a wealthy landowner commissioned a portrait of his ward, 23-year-old Alida Christina Assink, and Jan Adam Kruseman painted her full-length, more than two metres tall. She sits on a balcony in the latest fashion, puff sleeves and a wide skirt making her waist look tiny, with a hunting dog at her feet and a garden vase beside her, props borrowed from the English portrait style he admired. According to the Rijksmuseum, which now shows the picture, this full-length format was one he otherwise kept for royalty.

By then Kruseman was already a success. Born in Haarlem in 1804, he learned from his cousin Cornelis Kruseman and then studied in Brussels with Jacques-Louis David, Napoleon's former painter, living there in exile. At 26 he became director of the Amsterdam art academy. A portrait of the banker and collector Adriaan van der Hoop opened the way to the court, and he eventually painted King William II six times. In all he made more than 500 portraits, mostly of nobles and rich burghers, with little flattery and close attention to fabric and dress.

In 1839 he helped found Arti et Amicitiae, the Amsterdam artists' society, and among his pupils was Jozef Israëls, later a leading painter of the Hague School. After his death in 1862 he was largely forgotten, until a retrospective at Het Loo Palace in 2002 brought his portraits back into view.