Mary II, when Princess of Orange c.1685 (oil on canvas)

Mary II (1662-94) Privy chamber, 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 404449) of the Prince and Princess of Orange commissioned by her father, James II, who sent Wissing to Holland in 1685 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. The Prince of Orange is shown dressed in armour, lace cravat and riband of the Garter, a medallion dangling from the knot at his waist; a baton in his right hand. In three years he was to depose his father-in-law and commissioner of this portrait to become William III. The future Mary II (1662-94) is seated in a landscape, holding her veil in her right hand; she is wearing a crimson ermine mantle and a blue silk dress with an elaborate jewelled brooch at the breast. Signed 'W: Wissing / fecit'