MASP

As to the model’s identification, see the biographical note on Frans Post. An abundant iconography was produced based on at least two models. The first was used mainly for engravings which Christian Hagens made with burin, an oil copy of which currently conserved by the Archaeological, Historical, and Geographic Institute in Pernambuco was published in Prado Valladares (1983, III, n. 90). According to Dattenberg (1967) and a letter of July 3 1975 that H. R. Hoetlink, director of the Mauritshuis, wrote to P. M. Bardi, the second model The Prince Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen is found in at least four other versions, i.e., replicas or atelier copies: 1. The Hague, Mauritshuis, which this museum acquired in 1820 (most probably this version is wholly autographic). 2. Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, inventory 281, Cleves, Museum Hans Koekkoek. 3. Noordeinde Palace, in The Hague. Collection Lippe, at the Detmold castle, in Westphalia. 4. A version with smaller dimensions (43 x 35 cm) with variations and the inscription “Johan Maurits, anno 1625(?) aetatis 59”, belonged in the collection J. de Souza Leão, in 1975, in Caracas. To Hoetlink, versions 4 and 6 are manifest copies, while the version in the Masp Collection, “an old 17th-century painting”, is in all likelihood a product of Jean de Baen’s atelier. On the background a landscape with a somewhat schematic representation of the Cleves Palace, which Maurits of Nassau built for his residence in Germany after his return from Brazil, in 1644. The palace gardens feature symbolical connotations in their elaborate forms and exuberant water system. The sculpture by Arthus Quellin (1609-1668) planted at the center was a gift from the city of Amsterdam to the prince.

— Unknown authorship, 1998

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