Wild Boar Hunt

In 1768 Prince William V, the stadholder of the Dutch Republic, was 20 years old, and he bought an entire art collection in one go. It had belonged to Govert van Slingelandt, a Hague collector whose pictures were few but choice, and this hunting scene by Berchem was among them. The Mauritshuis thinks the subject spoke to the prince directly. He had grown up with the hunting parties at Het Loo, the Orange family's hunting palace in Gelderland.

Berchem painted it in 1659, with the hunt in full swing. A huntsman aims his gun at a wild boar running for its life, a second boar is being driven out at the edge of the woods, and a dead roe deer lies in the foreground. At the left, several dogs pant from the chase. The canvas belongs to the Mauritshuis and hangs in the Gallery Prince Willem V, the gallery William V himself opened on the Buitenhof in The Hague in 1774.