Double Portrait of Frederik Hendrik (1584-1647) and Amalia of Solms-Braunfels (1602-1675)

In October 1637 Frederik Hendrik, the stadholder who led the Dutch Republic and its armies, took back the fortress town of Breda, which Spanish troops had captured 12 years earlier. This life-size double portrait was made to mark that victory. He stands in armour worked with gold, a commander's baton in his hand and his helmet set down beside him, while beyond the heavy curtain an army camp spreads out towards a distant town. His wife, Amalia of Solms, wears black, heavy with lace and pearls. Honthorst, their court painter, made the first version for the great hall of Huis ter Nieuburg, a palace near Rijswijk, and that canvas is now lost. What hangs here is the copy he painted for Constantijn Huygens, Frederik Hendrik's secretary, who kept it in his own house on the Plein, directly opposite the Mauritshuis.