Johan Arnold Zoutman (1724-93), Vice Admiral

By the time Cornelis van Cuylenburgh signed this portrait in 1801, the sitter had been dead for eight years and the prince who had honoured him had fled the country. Johan Arnold Zoutman commanded the Dutch squadron at the Dogger Bank in the North Sea on 5 August 1781, against a British squadron under Admiral Hyde Parker. Both sides were escorting merchant convoys. The battle was undecided, yet the Republic, faring badly in its war with Britain, celebrated it as a victory.

Stadtholder Willem V gave Zoutman a gold sword of honour, a Dogger Bank medal and a large gold medal on a chain, and the portrait shows them, with sea charts, a pair of dividers and a sea battle behind him. In 1795 Willem V went into exile and the Batavian Republic replaced his government. In May 1801 the portrait was bought for the Nationale Konst-Gallerij in The Hague, the new national gallery that grew into the Rijksmuseum.