Portrait of Prince Willem II (1626-1650)

Willem II became stadholder in 1647, at 20, and led the Dutch Republic for barely three years. In the summer of 1650 he had six leading members of the States of Holland arrested and sent troops to take Amsterdam by surprise, the city at the head of the opposition to him. In November of that year he died of smallpox, aged 24. Here he stands in armour, with a commander's baton in his hand.

The Mauritshuis catalogues the canvas as studio of Gerrit van Honthorst, made some time after 1647. It may have been among the pictures gathered in 1800 for the Nationale Konst-Gallery, the first national art museum of the Netherlands, which opened that year in Huis ten Bosch. It came to the Mauritshuis in 1822, still belongs to it, and hangs in the Gallery Prince Willem V.