Portrait of an Officer

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Jan van Ravesteyn was one of the most important portrait painters in The Hague. He painted a series of twenty-five officers’ portraits, all in the same layout, with the men depicted from the hips up and wearing armour. Their helmets are decorated with orange plumes, referring to the commander-in-chief of the army, Prince Maurits of Orange. The series of portraits comes from one of the Orange family’s palaces in The Hague.