Portrait of Louis Napoleon, King of Holland

Louis Bonaparte wears his own order on his chest. The silver star and the pale blue sash belong to the Order of the Union, which he founded himself, and beside the star hangs the officer's cross of his brother's Legion of Honour. Napoleon had put him on the Dutch throne in 1806, expecting an obedient ally. Instead, as the Rijksmuseum puts it, he stood up for Dutch interests, and in 1810 Napoleon forced him to abdicate. Hodges, an English-born portraitist in Amsterdam, painted him the year before, full length in the white uniform of a colonel of the foot guards, his hat in one hand. Louis gave the canvas to the museum himself. In 1808 he had brought the national art collection to Amsterdam and installed it in his new palace on the Dam as the Royal Museum, forerunner of today's Rijksmuseum.