Philip van Dijk (Oud Beijerland 1683 – 1753 The Hague)

Portrait of Willem IV of Orange-Nassau (1711–1751)

Oil on panel, 24.5 x 20.4 cm (9.7 x 8 inch)

Signed and dated ‘P. van Dijk fe / 1729’ (upper right)

Provenance
Private collection, The Netherlands

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This recently discovered portrait by Philip van Dijk represents Willem IV of Orange-Nassau, painted in 1729, presumably to mark the sitter’s eighteenth birthday and reaching the age of majority, when he assumed all official duties of Stadtholder of Friesland, Groningen, Gelre and Drenthe.¹ Born in 1711 as the son of Johan Willem Friso of Orange-Nassau and Maria Louse of Hessen-Kassel, his father had died 48 days before Willem’s birth and his initial eighteen years were spent under the guidance of his mother, who acted as regent.

A related portrait by Van Dijk of Prince Willem IV, painted in 1734, five years after our portrait, is in the collection of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, USA (fig.).² The Baltimore portrait was used as the model for an engraving by Houbraken in 1734 (fig.),³ and a mezzotint by John Faber the Younger in 1735.⁴ For all these, the recently discovered 1729 portrait is the ultimate source, and it is likely to have been made as a model for portraits in other mediums, such as prints and medals, which generally showed ‘en profil’ portraits of rulers and monarchs, based on a custom developed in Antiquity. The intimate size and panel support of our portrait also suggests it was intended as a model for engravers or medal-makers and easy to transport – official portraits of the prince tended to be larger. It is not known whether the portrait was retained by the prince’s family, but even if it did, there is no record of it, and at some stage it must have left the collections of the house of Orange-Nassau.

Willem posed for Philip van Dijk on several occasions, and even described the sessions in his correspondence with his mother, for instance in a letter of November 1730,⁵ though the 1729 portrait session does not seem to be recorded. Van Dijk also painted the young prince in 1723, together with his mother and sister Amalia (fig.).⁶

Philip van Dijk was born near Rotterdam in 1683 and was taught from the age of thirteen by Arnold Boonen, and later by Adriaen van der Werff.⁷ Philip married Geertruyd van Beekhuysen in Rotterdam in 1708, and established his studio in the town of Middelburg in Zeeland in the same year. Ten years later Van Dijk moved to The Hague, the leading artistic centre in the country, where he rose to prominence as the portraitist par excellence of the Dutch elite, and also advised leading collectors of works by the great masters of the seventeenth century, notably Stadtholder Willem IV, Count Johan Hendrik van Wassenaer Obdam, and members of the Van Schuylenburch and Van Dishoek families.

According to the artist’s contemporary biographer Johan van Gool (1685–1763), Van Dijk had started his pursuits of works from the Golden Age during his period in Middelburg, which counted several collectors; because of the town’s proximity to Flanders, Philip would travel to Antwerp every year, buying up works by Dutch masters, which he would then sell in Holland. Van Dijk was an active collector himself as well, and by the end of his life had a collection numbering 165 works by the leading masters, including Rembrandt’s 1634 Incredulity of St Thomas.⁸

In 1725 Van Dijk was appointed court painter to the Landgraf-Prince of Hessen-Kassel, whom he also assisted in his collecting activities – an important position, as the Landgraf was one of the wealthiest and most enthusiastic collectors of the time. As a painter, Van Dijk was mostly renowned for his portraits, but he also produced genre pieces. His chef-d’oeuvre is the group portrait of the Landgrave of Hessen-Kassel and members of his extended family, still preserved in Kassel.⁹

1. For Willem IV, see the extensive recent biography by Fred Jagtenberg, Willem IV, Nijmegen 2018.
2. Oil on canvas, 77.5 x 64.1 cm, singed ‘P. van Dijk Fc’ (upper left), inv. no. 37.799 (1931 bequest). We are grateful to Jo Briggs of the Walters Art Museum for her kind assistance and helpful remarks.
3. Jacob Houbraken (1698–1780), engraving, plate size 169 x 117 mm, inscribed in the plate ‘P. van Dijk pinxit’ and ‘Jac. Houbraken sculpsit’, Rijksprentenkabinet, inv. no. RP-P-OB-48.388.
4. John Faber the Younger (c.1684–1756), mezzotint, 349 x 250 mm, British Museum, inv. no. 1874,0808.1179.
5. Jagtenberg, op. cit., p. 247 and p. 852, note 243.
6. Oil on canvas, 60 x 72 cm, collection Geschiedkundige Vereniging Oranje-Nassau, The Hague, on loan to Paleis Het Loo, Apeldoorn.
7. For Van Dijk, see: E. Korthals Altes, ‘Philip van Dijk, een schilder-kunsthandelaar met een locale en internationale clientèle’, Oud Holland 116 (2003), pp. 34-56.
8. Oil on canvas, 53.1 x 50.5 cm, Pushkin Museum, Moscow; J. Haak a.o., Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, Dordrecht/Boston/Lancaster, vol. VI, 2015, cat. no. 127.
9. Oil on canvas, 95 x 134 cm, Schloss Wilhelmsthal, Kassel; J.W. Niemeijer, ‘Zelfportretten van Philips van Dijk’, Oud Holland 74 (1959), p. 245.