Gerrit van Honthorst, circle of
Portrait of Henriette Catharina of Nassau-Orange, later Princess of Anhalt-Dessau
Oil on canvas, mounted on panel. 99 x 88 cm.
The composition of this piece has been borrowed from a portrait of Louise Hollandine von der Pfalz, a daughter of Elector Frederick V, painted by Gerrit van Honthorst and housed in the Utrecht Centraal Museum. The present work borrows the dynamic, striding pose for its subject, as well as the depictions of two hunting dogs and the crossed tree trunks in the right edge. Differences can be seen in the treatment of the landscape background and in the colour chosen for the robe of the Princess, who is depicted as Diana, goddess of the hunt. Whilst Honthorst uses yellow for the gown in his Utrecht portrait of Louise Hollandine, the artist here chooses vermillion.
However, the most significant deviation can be seen in the features, as the sitter of the present work was not Louise Hollandine, but more probably the 15 year younger Henriette Catharina von Nassau-Orange. Due to the close familial ties between the houses of Palatinate and Nassau-Orange and the fact that Louise Hollandine grew up with her parents in exile in The Hague, it seemed only natural that a portrait of Henriette Catharina should be orientated toward Honthorst's composition.
Henriette Catharina (1637-1708) was the daughter of the Netherlandish stadtholder Friedrich Heinrich of Orange-Nassau. She married Prince Johann Georg II of Anhalt-Dessau in 1659, thus marrying into a German princely household like her three sisters.