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1 of 253523 objects
Mary, Princess of Orange (1631-1660) 1655?
Oil on canvas | 120.0 x 98.0 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 405877
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The date of this Royal Collection portrait has not yet been established with certainty. It was perhaps painted to record the Princess's appearance at an entertainment in The Hague early in 1655, where she appeared 'very well dressed, like an Amazon'. However its quality suggests that this is not the primary version. Another version by Hanneman, now in the Mauritshuis, was produced as a posthumous portrait in 1664, apparently for Princess Mary's son. Other versions are known. Over her white satin bodice Mary, Princess of Orange wears a feathered cloak. She carries a riding switch and wears an elaborately feathered and jewelled turban. In the seventeenth century such cloaks were worn by Indians living in the North-East of Brazil, which was a Dutch colony between 1630-54, ruled by Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen. The feathers were probably imported into The Netherlands and made up into cloaks in Europe.
Provenance
First recorded in the King's Bedchamber at Whitehall in 1666 (no 242) and again in 1688 (no 94); after moving to store at Kensington Palace in 1710 (no 141), it was hanging in the King's Gallery at Kensington in 1818 (no 320), where it appears in Pyne's illustrated Royal Residences of 1819 (RCIN 922158)
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Creator(s)
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Medium and techniques
Oil on canvas
Measurements
120.0 x 98.0 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external)
137.9 x 114.3 x 5.0 cm (frame, external)
Category
Object type(s)
Featured in
ExhibitionIn Fine Style: The Art of Tudor and Stuart Fashion : The Queen's Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse
Traces changing tastes in fashionable attire in Great Britain in the 16th and 17th centuries.