Portrait of Johan Maurits (1604-1679), Count of Nassau-Siegen, Founder of the Mauritshuis

Count Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen spent several years as governor of the Dutch colony in Brazil. He brought good government to the colony and got artists and scientists to study the new world. But Johan Maurits was also the man responsible for drawing the Dutch into the international slavetrade. He managed that beslaved African men and women were put to work as slaves on the sugar plantations in Brazil.

In this portrait we see Johan Maurits as stadholder of the city of Kleef, located just over the Dutch-German border. It was painted by the Hague portrait painter Jan de Baen and is one of the few paintings in the Mauritshuis still in its original 17th-century frame.