Portrait of Wolfert van Brederode (1649-1679)

Wolfert van Brederode was about 14 when Jan Mijtens painted him, and he was already a cavalry officer. At the age of seven he had taken over command of a cavalry company from his brother, and in 1665, two years after this portrait, he was formally sworn in to the post. That explains the costume. He wears a tunic under a breastplate modelled on Roman armour, with strips of cloth at the shoulders, and holds a battle axe. The Dutch of the time called this way of dressing a sitter "after the antique", and Mijtens placed him in a sunlit Italian landscape with a classical building, far from the family's house on the Korte Voorhout in The Hague.

The portrait is still in its original gilt frame, carved with a cannon, drums, a trumpet and helmets, and at the bottom a battle axe like the one in his hand.