Portrait of Maurits, Prince of Orange

Jan Muller was one of the most sought-after Mannerist printmakers at the end of the sixteenth century. The son of an Amsterdam printer, printmaker, and publisher, he developed a style modeled on that of Hendrick Goltzius, the premier draftsman and printmaker in the northern Netherlands. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, he began to engrave portraits. A few were of artists and musicians, but most were of important political figures, reproducing painted portraits by various artists.

Among the largest and most complex are the portraits of Joannes Neyen (1980.1077.3 & 1991.1339), Albert, Archduke of Austria (22.42.1), Isabella Clara Eugenia (51.501.7561), and the present work, the Portrait of Maurits, Prince of Orange. In these Muller showed off his technical brilliance, replicating details of the sitters’ surroundings and the luxurious fabrics of their clothing. His skill is particularly evident here in his handling of the elaborately worked armor that Maurits is wearing, and the glittering helmet on the table beside him. Maurits (1567-1625) was the stadtholder (hereditary leader) of the Dutch Republic, known for his military prowess. After a long war he freed his country from the Hapsburg Empire, pushing the Spanish out of the northern Netherlands. He was less successful in reuniting the north with the southern provinces, and in 1609, the year after this engraving was published, signed a truce with Spain, leaving them in charge of what is now modern Belgium.