Studio of William Wissing, Portrait of King William III when Prince of Orange

Studio of William Wissing (1656-1687)
Portrait of King William III when Prince of Orange (1650-1702)
c.1686
Oil on canvas
25 x 30 ins.

Wissing was a Dutch artist who came to London in 1676, studied with Sir Peter Lely and effectively took over the business for the seven years between Lely’s death in 1680 and his own in 1687 (aged only thirty one).This portrait is likely based on one one of a pair of portraits in the Royal Collection (OM 321 and 323, 405644 and 40445) of the Princess and Princess of Orange commissioned by her father, James II, who sent Wissing to Holland in 1785 to execute them. Constantyn Huyghens commented on the newly arrived painter that he was not yet up to his master’s (that is Lely’s) standard. Wearing full armour of highly polished steel, with baton of command in hand, the military-minded William III is portrayed as the archetypal commander – serious and authoritative, seemingly with little concern for the frivolities of fashion. In three years he was to depose his father-in-law and commissioner of this portrait to become William III.

That this is a studio work is testified to by the incorporation of the obedient dog from another portrait of William III by Wissing, this one being in the Mount Edgcumbe House collection.

Provenance:
Likely Godard van Reede (who accompanied William III of Orange to England and became Earl of Athlone on 14th March 1691); by descent to the Barons Van Rheede van Oudsthoorns of Utrecht;
Private collection, Germany.