Portret van Willem Lodewijk, graaf van Nassau-Dillenburg, Filips, graaf van Nassau, Ernst Casimir, graaf van Nassau-Dietz, en Lodewijk Gunther, graaf van Nassau 19th century

This is a portrait of Willem Lodewijk, Filips, Ernst Casimir, and Lodewijk Gunther, all counts of Nassau, made by an anonymous artist. Though we don’t know when it was made, the setting and attire suggests that the men lived sometime in the 17th century. The counts of Nassau, a powerful European dynasty, played a key role in the military and political life of the Dutch Republic. In this portrait they display the visual codes of power: expensive clothes, weapons, a grand architectural setting. But portraits like this are never neutral records. They are powerful statements of political and social status. To fully understand this image, we need to consider the institutional and social contexts in which it was made, tracing the history of the Nassau family and the Northern European aristocracy during the early modern era. What did it mean to be a noble family? What forms of social power did they wield? It is only by answering such questions that we can unlock the meaning of this portrait.