Portrait of Stadholder William V (1748-1806)

The founder of the Mauritshuis collection was Prince Willem V of Orange. At the age of eighteen he became stadholder of Holland, and one year later married the sixteen-year-old Wilhelmina of Prussia. Shortly after their wedding, the Danish painter Ziesenis painted some portraits of the young couple.

Willem V had a large collection of Dutch and Flemish masters from the seventeenth century. But he also collected antiquities, coins, stones, fossils, books and even animals. His collection later formed the basis for several museum collections, including that of the Mauritshuis.