Jan de Baen was court artist to the House of Orange and typical of that generation of Dutch artist who was brought up on the portraiture of the school of Rembrandt but in later life opted for the more elegant style of Van Dyck.

This is a version of a painting, formerly in the possession of the Emperor of Germany, signed and dated 1667, when the sitter was seventeen. It shows the head of the House of Orange during the Stadholderless period (1652-72) when the Dutch Republic was ruled by Johann de Witt, though in 1667 William III was at least admitted to the Council of State. This image also shows the time at which the Dutch elite increasingly sought to emulate the aristocratic elegance and courtly classicism of Versailles. William here wears a stagey, fantastical and highly decorated version of Roman armour used for masques, operas and plays for the next hundred years. In the background a sculpted group of the struggle between Hercules and the Nemean Lion suggests that William is a young Hercules, an identification which he made more of after his arrival in England in 1688. His rebuilding of Hampton Court is as consistently 'themed' on Hercules as Versailles is on Apollo.

Inscribed 'J. D. Bane f / Hagh' (i. e. 'made at The Hague')