Portrait of Michiel de Ruyter (1607-1676)

This portrait still sits in the frame made for it in 1667, gilded and carved all round with the gear of a sea war, drums and flags, cannon and powder kegs, with De Ruyter's own coat of arms at the top. Ferdinand Bol painted the admiral the year after his victory over the English in the Four Days' Battle, put his flagship on the sea behind him, and signed on the balustrade. For about 130 years the canvas hung in the Admiralty in Amsterdam, among the men who ran the navy. In 1798 it went to the state naval storehouse in Amsterdam, and later in the 19th century to the Ministry of the Navy in The Hague, where until 1889 it hung in the room of ship models. It then spent five years on loan at the Rijksmuseum. In 1894 the Mauritshuis acquired it in a swap, handing the Rijksmuseum another portrait of De Ruyter attributed to Bol in return.