John Maurice of Nassau-Siegen (1604 - 1679)

The portrait in a gilded frame shows John Maurice of Nassau-Siegen in half profile, his eyes fixed steadily on the viewer. He has blue eyes and red-blond curly hair that billows especially around the ears. His pointed beard appears groomed, as does his moustache that twirls upwards slightly. John Maurice wears a black, sturdy-looking jacket with rivets, an embroidered red-orange sash and a spotlessly white, neck-high lace collar. John Maurice of Nassau-Siegen is a prominent historical figure, in the meantime a controversial one. Having joined the Dutch military at an early age, he became Governor General of the Dutch West India Company in Brazil in 1636. Economic and military successes, as well as his promotion of art and science, created an image of John Maurice as a ‘humanist prince’. More recent research questions whether these achievements would have been possible without profits from the slave trade and the labour of enslaved people. In 1652, he was elevated to the rank of prince, bestowing upon Siegen the small crown that became the town’s emblem.