Portrait of Princess Frederika Sophia Wilhelmina (1751-1820)

The young woman reading here is Wilhelmina of Prussia, a niece of Frederick the Great. She was barely 16 when she married William V, Prince of Orange, in Berlin in 1767, and Ziesenis painted her soon afterwards as the partner to his portrait of her husband.

She proved far more decisive than the prince. Twenty years later the Dutch Republic was divided between supporters of the House of Orange and the Patriots, a reform party that had pushed the stadholder out of The Hague. In June 1787 Wilhelmina set out for The Hague herself and was stopped on the road near Goejanverwellesluis by an armed Patriot corps, then sent back. Her brother, King Frederick William II of Prussia, took the arrest as an insult to his family, and that September a Prussian army marched into Holland and restored William V to power.