Portrait of Maurits Le Leu de Wilhem (1643- 1724)

Painted in 1677 and held by the Mauritshuis, this canvas by Caspar Netscher portrays Maurits Le Leu de Wilhem, a member of a prominent Hague family with connections to both the Dutch court and the Walloon refugee community. The 1677 date places this portrait in Netscher's mature Hague period, when he was the preferred portraitist of the Dutch court elite and producing work of remarkable consistency and technical mastery. Le Leu de Wilhem was born in 1643 and would live until 1724, making this a portrait made when the sitter was in his early thirties. The Mauritshuis holds this work as part of its collection of distinguished Hague portraiture, reflecting the royal and aristocratic associations that have defined the collection since its founding.

Canvas, oil, with Netscher's characteristic three-quarter-length male portrait composition. The sitter wears fashionable late seventeenth-century dress, and the handling of the silk or velvet reflects Netscher's established mastery of luxury textile rendering. The face is individualised with the careful observation he brought to all his mature male portraits.