Triumph of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange

The Huis ten Bosch, now a Dutch royal residence, was built on a site near The Hague given to Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange in 1645 by the Dutch Republic. In 1647, before it was completed, Frederick Henry died and his devoted widow Amalia of Solms-Braunfels designed to make substantial changes to the design, turning it into a memorial to her late husband. She also acquired a painting of Artemisia, who raised the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus as a memorial to her dead husband Mausolus. The Huis ten Bosch's dedication to Frederick Henry's memory can also be seen in its main hall, the Oranjezaal, which contains a vast cycle of paintings celebrating his deeds and virtues, inspired by Peter Paul Rubens' Marie de Medici cycle in Paris and the paintings allegorical ceiling paintings of James I of England in the Banqueting House in London. Several painters were taken on to contribute to the cycle, from both the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Netherlands. Triumph was the culmination of the cycle - Jordaens had already received a commission for the room's Allegory of Time in 1650. After the death of both Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, Jordaens was now the leading painter of the Spanish Netherlands. Amalia took on her husband's former secretary Constantijn Huygens and the architect Jacob van Campen to supervise the painting of the Oranjezaal cycle. Letters survive from Jordaens to Huygens, showing that Van Campen sent a plan of the room to the painter and that he proposed a number of modifications to his original idea. Three oil sketches for the ceiling by Jordaens also survive, probably produced for Amalia's and Van Campen's approval. None of the sketches totally matches the final painting, probably showing that not all of the painter's proposals were approved. Another letter survives from Jordaens to Amalia, explaining the allegorical meanings of the finished work.