Portrait of William the Silent refers to a portrait painting on panel by the Flemish painter Adriaen Thomasz. Key depicting William the Silent, the leader of the Dutch revolt at about 46 years of age. [1]
The work survives in three versions, which are now in the Mauritshuis (The Hague), the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam) and the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza (Madrid). Only the latter version is dated and was painted in 1579. All three are considered autograph and to go back to a now lost original. [2]
There are some minor differences between the versions in some details. The Rijksmuseum and Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza versions are the closest to each other. The Mauritshuis version omits the shoulder and arm and shows a more severe facial expression. [2] The version in the Mauritshuis was restored after the panel was damaged by a crack in the wood, which did not affect the face. The shoulder of the sitter has been reconstructed. The reconstruction was based on the other versions of the portrait. [3]
The sitter is posed against a dark background against which the flesh tones of the face, the white ruff and the elegant grey and gold decoration of his clothes stand out. The face is rendered with much detail in line with the Northern portraiture of the period. [2] At the time this portrait was painted, William the Silent was at the height of his career. This can also be seen in the portrait. He is not shown in armour, but in neat and opulent civilian clothes. [4] In this portrait from Key's later period, the influence of Antonis Mor is shown in its increased interest in conveying the sitter's social status. [2]
Adriaen Thomasz. Key was a Flemish painter of portraits and religious paintings, a draughtsman and a printmaker. He worked for a while in the Antwerp workshop of the prominent history and portrait painter Willem Key and later took over the workshop. [5]
Jan Josephszoon van Goyen was a Dutch landscape painter. Van Goyen was an extremely prolific artist; approximately twelve hundred paintings and more than one thousand drawings by him are known.
Antonello da Messina, properly Antonello di Giovanni di Antonio, but also called Antonello degli Antoni and Anglicized as Anthony of Messina, was an Italian painter from Messina, Sicily, active during the Early Italian Renaissance. His work shows strong influences from Early Netherlandish painting although there is no documentary evidence that he ever travelled beyond Italy. Giorgio Vasari credited him with the introduction of oil painting into Italy. Unusually for a south Italian artist of the Renaissance, his work proved influential on painters in northern Italy, especially in Venice.
Sir Anthony van Dyck was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Southern Netherlands and Italy.
Adriaen Isenbrandt or Adriaen Ysenbrandt was a Northern Renaissance painter. Documentary evidence suggests he was a significant artist of his period, even though no specific works by his hand are clearly documented. Art historians have conjectured that he operated a large workshop specializing in religious subjects and devotional paintings, which were executed in a conservative style in the tradition of Early Netherlandish painting. He was believed by Georges Hulin de Loo to be the same person as the anonymous Master of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin or Pseudo-Mostaert. Other art historians doubt that any works can be reliably attributed to him, and the number of paintings attributed to him by major museums has been in decline for many decades.
Sir Anthonis Mor, also known as Anthonis Mor van Dashorst and Antonio Moro, was a Netherlandish portrait painter, much in demand by the courts of Europe. He has also been referred to as Antoon, Anthonius, Anthonis or Mor van Dashorst, and as Antonio Moro, Anthony More, etc., but signed most of his portraits as Anthonis Mor.
Nicolaes Maes was a Dutch painter known for his genre scenes, portraits, religious compositions and the occasional still life. A pupil of Rembrandt in Amsterdam, he returned to work in his native city Dordrecht for 20 years. In the latter part of his career he returned to Amsterdam where he became the leading portrait painter of his time. Maes contributed to the development of genre painting in the Netherlands and was the most prominent portrait painter working in Amsterdam in the final three decennia of the 17th century.
Cesar Pietersz, or Cesar Boetius van Everdingen, older brother of Allart van Everdingen and Jan van Everdingen, was a Dutch Golden Age portrait and history painter.
Jan Davidsz. de Heem or in-full Jan Davidszoon de Heem, also called Johannes de Heem or Johannes van Antwerpen or Jan Davidsz de Hem, was a still life painter who was active in Utrecht and Antwerp. He is a major representative of that genre in both Dutch and Flemish Baroque painting.
Joachim Patinir, also called Patenier, was a Flemish Renaissance painter of history and landscape subjects. He was Flemish, from the area of modern Wallonia, but worked in Antwerp, then the centre of the art market in the Low Countries. Patinir was a pioneer of landscape as an independent genre and he was the first Flemish painter to regard himself primarily as a landscape painter. He effectively invented the world landscape, a distinct style of panoramic northern Renaissance landscapes which is Patinir's important contribution to Western art.
Bartholomeus van der Helst was a Dutch painter. Considered to be one of the leading portrait painters of the Dutch Golden Age, his elegant portraits gained him the patronage of Amsterdam's elite as well as the Stadtholder's circle. Besides portraits, van der Helst painted a few genre pictures as well as some biblical scenes and mythological subjects.
Jan Lievens was a Dutch Golden Age painter who was associated with his close contemporary Rembrandt, a year older, in the early parts of their careers. They shared a birthplace in Leiden, training with Pieter Lastman in Amsterdam, where they shared a studio for about five years until 1631. Like Rembrandt he painted both portraits and history paintings, but unlike him Lievens' career took him away from Amsterdam to London, Antwerp, The Hague and Berlin.
Frans Pourbus the Elder was a Flemish Renaissance painter who is known primarily for his portraits and religious compositions, as well as a few genre scenes. He was the son of the prominent Bruges painter and cartographer Pieter Pourbus and the father of Frans Pourbus the Younger who became an international portraitist of the European ruling class.
Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch, also known as Hendrik Johannes Weissenbruch was a Dutch painter of the Hague School. He is noted especially for his watercolours.
Juan van der Hamen y (Gómez de) León was a Spanish painter, a master of still life paintings, also called bodegones. Prolific and versatile, he painted allegories, landscapes, and large-scale works for churches and convents. Today he is remembered mostly for his still lifes, a genre he popularized in 1620s Madrid.
Adriaen Hanneman was a Dutch Golden Age painter best known for his portraits of the exiled British royal court. His style was strongly influenced by his contemporary, Anthony van Dyck.
Jan Cossiers was a Flemish painter and draughtsman. Cossiers' earliest works were Caravaggesque genre works depicting low life scenes. Later in his career he painted mostly history and religious subjects as well as portraits. Cossiers was one of the leading painters in Antwerp after Rubens' death in 1640 and one of the most original colorists in 17th-century Flanders.
Willem Adriaensz Key was a Flemish renaissance painter.
Bartholomäus Bruyn (1493–1555), usually called Barthel Bruyn or Barthel Bruyn the Elder, was a German Renaissance painter active in Cologne. He painted altarpieces and portraits, and was Cologne's foremost portrait painter of his day.
Adriaen Thomasz. Key, was a Flemish painter of portraits and religious paintings, a draughtsman and a printmaker. He worked for a while in the Antwerp workshop of the prominent history and portrait painter Willem Key and later took over the workshop. His work was highly regarded in his time for its technical mastery and innovative concepts and thus influenced a later generation of painters including Rubens.
Portrait of a Fat Man are names given to two near-identical oil on panel paintings attributed to the Early Netherlandish artist Robert Campin. Both versions are dated c. 1425, and are in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin and Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.
