Portrait of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange

For most of the 19th century this portrait was dated 1628, and the date rested on a mistake. The early biographer Arnold Houbraken had tied van Dyck's stay in the northern Netherlands to the wrong commission, and the error passed into the catalogues. The Prado now places the picture in 1631 or 1632, the years the painter travelled north and, according to Constantijn Huygens, the prince's own secretary, called on Frans Hals in Haarlem. The sitter is Frederick Henry of Nassau, stadtholder of the Dutch Republic since 1625, shown half length with a general's baton in his hand, his armour and plumed helmet set down on a table, a stone wall and pilaster painted in behind him. He is not given the elegance van Dyck usually handed his commanders. The museum reads that as a choice, the painter working inside the sober Dutch portrait convention of Michiel van Miereveld. The canvas came to the Prado on deposit in 1828.