Bust of Stadholder-King William III (1650-1702)

By 1699 William III had been king of England, Scotland and Ireland for ten years, and he still governed the Dutch Republic as its stadholder. His wife and co-ruler, Mary Stuart, had died of smallpox in 1694, and he now reigned in Britain alone. Jan Blommendael carved this bust of him that year in The Hague, and recorded the place on the pedestal in Latin, Hagae Comitis.

The marble presents him as a monarch, wrapped in an ermine cloak and wearing the chain of the Order of the Garter, England's highest order of knighthood. The long curled wig was the latest fashion, and Blommendael drilled deep holes into the stone to give its curls life and shadow. The bust reached the Dutch royal collection in 1820, bought from a dealer in Liège.