Engraved portrait of Marie Louise of Hesse-Kassel, Princess Dowager of Nassau-Dietz by Jacobus Houbraken after Bernardus Accama / Netherlands, 1751

Bust-length portrait of Marie Louise of Hesse-Kassel (1688–1765), Dowager Princess of Johan Willem Friso, shown frontally, wearing a widow’s veil and an ermine-trimmed coat. Her portrait is set within an ornamented oval frame bearing her name and titles. The oval rests on a pedestal that incorporates two relief panels with allegorical scenes: on the left, a veiled woman, a man holding a newborn child, and a skeleton cutting a thread before a tomb — an allegory of mortality and the cycle of life; on the right, a woman with an anchor (Hope), an old winged man holding hourglasses (Time), and a seated man holding a torch and shield — likely representing vigilance or enduring strength. In the lower foreground are additional symbolic elements: a smoking censer decorated with a crane, an open book, a palm frond, a globe, and ears of wheat. At the centre bottom, an orange supports a dove holding a wheat stalk in its beak — a symbol of peace, legacy, and a visual allusion to the House of Orange.

Physical Description:

Sheet: 385 × 248 mm
Platemark: 365 × 235 mm
Image: 350 × 220 mm
Medium: Etching and engraving on laid paper
Technique: Burin and etching

Inscriptions:

• Within the oval frame (engraved):
  MARIA LOUISA VAN HESSENKASSEL, PRINSESSE DOUARIERE VAN J. W. FRISO, PRINS VAN ORANJE &c. &c. &c.

• Below image (engraved):
  B. Accama pinxit
  H. Pothoven Effig. et Orn. delin.t
  J. Houbraken sculps. 1751
  J.bs Haffman en P. Meyer Excud.

People:

• Marie Louise of Hesse-Kassel (German-Dutch, 1688–1765) — sitter

• Accama, Bernardus (Dutch, 1697–1756) — painter (original work)

• Pothoven, Hendrik (Dutch, 1725–1795) — intermediary draughtsman (effigy and ornament)

• Houbraken, Jacobus (Dutch, 1698–1780) — engraver

• Haffman, Jacobus (Dutch, fl. 1737–1759) — publisher

• Meyer, Pieter (Dutch, 1718–1781) — publisher