Full-Length Portrait of Johan Maurits (1604- 1679), Count of Nassau-Siegen

Johan Maurits, Count of Nassau-Siegen was the original occupant of the Mauritshuis. He had already been dead for nearly fifty years when Van Logteren made this terracotta statue of him. Van Logteren probably produced this as a design for a large statue he was commissioned to make, although we know nothing of such a commission. The count is depicted full-length and is dressed as a lordly ruler, with state armour, a helmet, a sword and a captain’s staff.

Johan Maurits 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 there was another side to Johan Maurits: he was also the man responsible for drawing the Dutch into the international trade in beslaved African men and women, who were put to work as slaves on the sugar cane plantations in Brazil.