William III when Prince of Orange, 1685 (oil on canvas)

William III (1650-1702) Queen's Gallery, Kensington Palace Wissing was a Dutch artist who came to London in 1676, studied with Sir Peter Lely and effectively took over the business for the seven years between Lely’s death in 1680 and his own in 1687 (aged only thirty one). All the works by Wissing in the Royal Collection date for this period.This is one of a pair of portraits (OM 321 and 323, 405644 and 40445) of the Princess and Princess of Orange commissioned by her father, James II, who sent Wissing to Holland in 1785 to execute them. Constantyn Huyghens commented on the newly arrived painter that he was not yet up to his master’s (that is Lely’s) standard. Wearing full armour of highly polished steel, with baton of command in hand, the military-minded William III is portrayed as the archetypal commander – serious and authoritative, seemingly with little concern for the frivolities of fashion. It is interesting to notice, however, that his cravat is of the most expensive and fashionable Venetian gros point lace, and he wears a Lesser George (the badge of the Order of the Garter) set with large rose-cut diamonds. In three years he was to depose his father-in-law and commissioner of this portrait to become William III. Signed 'W: Wissing: fecit'