Esaias van de Velde

(Amsterdam 1587-1630 The Hague)

A mounted general addressing his troops,

Footnotes

Provenance
Princesse Charles d'Arenburg, Brussels
Her Sale, Giroux, Brussels, 15 November 1926, lot 85
Sale, Christie's, London, 5 July 1996, lot 16
With Rafael Valls, London, 1998

Exhibited
Delft, Stedelijk Museum Het Prinsenhof, Beelden van een strijd: oorlog en kunst vóór de Vrede van Munster 1621-1648, 14 March-14 June, 1998, pp. 300-1, no. 79

Literature
A.C. Steland Stief, Jan Asselyn, Amsterdam, 1971, pl. IV
G. S. Keyes, Esaias van den Velde, Doornspijk, 1984, cat. no. 39, ill. pl.438

Henk Visser, who died in 2006 at the age of 83, led a colourful life devoted to working with and collecting weapons. His collection of firearms was admired by connoisseurs throughout the world, complementing his distinguished career as a manufacturer of modern ammunition and weapons. Indeed, he was to become recognised as the world's greatest collector of historical Dutch firearms. In further complement to the weaponry the Visser Collection also contained a series of fine 17th century Dutch and Flemish battle scenes, depicting in particular scenes from the Thirty Years' War (1618-48), a conflict that had a devastating effect on the Low Countries, whose territories were fiercely disputed between the Habsburg rulers, the French and the Dutch. The independent-minded Dutch were eager to celebrate their resistance to Habsburg tyranny, and it is no surprise that, given the parallels between Visser's own resistance to the Nazi invaders in World War II (he narrowly escaped a death-sentence at the time), that Henk Visser was a keen collector of works that depict the earlier conflict.