Carved.

The face has sustained slight damage. The tips of two decorations at the neck are missing. Small pieces have been inserted in the back of the head and in the left-hand epaulette. There is a crack on the back of the prince’s right shoulder. The work stands on a grey marble socle.

…; anonymous sale, Amsterdam (Frederik Muller), 20-27 May 1919, no. 1986; …; from sale, Jonkheer W.A. van den Bosch (Doorn), Dordrecht (A. Mak), 13-15 November 1956, no. 1020, fl. 63, to the museum

Object number: NG-390

This bust of crown prince William of Orange, later King William II, is dated 1826 and signed by a certain ‘C. Boret’. It is a faithful, half-size copy after an original by the court sculptor Jean-Louis van Geel (1787-1852).¹¹This could not possibly have been Charles-Amédée de Boret (1837-1916). He was a French painter and engraver, who was born only after the realization of the portrait. The prince, then aged about 24, wears the uniform of a general with a high collar and fringe epaulettes decorated with four stars. The Grand Cross of the Military Order of William I is pinned on the left side of his chest. Below and beside it the crown prince wears the medals awarded him by his allies for his heroism during the Battle of Waterloo (1815): the Russian Military Order of Saint George, the British Peninsular Gold Cross and, on a ribbon round his neck, the Austrian Military Order of Maria Theresa.²²W. Bergé, ‘Jean-Louis van Geel (1787-1852): Een portretbuste van kroonprins Willem (II)’, Antiek 29 (1994), pp. 51-57, esp. p. 53 and Vandepitte in A. Jacobs, Welgevormd: Mechelse beeldhouwers in Europa (1780-1850), exh. cat. Mechelen (Lamot/Museum Schepenhuis) 2006, no. 74. Despite his formal attire and idealised physiognomy, the young prince is depicted fairly informally, with luxuriant hair and a smile playing round his mouth, consistent with his extravert and optimistic character.

The original bust by Van Geel was one of an ensemble of five portraits of members of the royal family which was completed between 1815 and 1817. William’s bust and the pendant portraying his consort, Anna Paulovna, went up in flames during the great fire on 29 December 1820 at their temporary residence, the Palace of the States-General, in Brussels. The original signed plaster models stood in Van Geel’s workshop and were preserved.³³Resp. W. Bergé, Heimwee naar de klassieken: De beelden van Mathieu Kessels en zijn tijdgenoten, 1815-1840, exh. cat. Den Bosch (Noordbrabants Museum) 1994-95, no. 43 and J. van Lennep, Catalogus van beeldhouwkunst: Kunstenaars geboren tussen 1750 en 1882, coll. cat. Brussels (Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium) 1992, pp. 369-70 (inv. no. 1270 A). See also W. Bergé, ‘Jean-Louis van Geel (1787-1852): Een portretbuste van kroonprins Willem (II)’, Antiek 29 (1994), pp. 51-57, esp. pp. 52-53. The model of the crown prince from round 1816 can now be found in the Brussels City Museum.⁴⁴See W. Bergé, ‘Jean-Louis van Geel (1787-1852): Een portretbuste van kroonprins Willem (II)’, Antiek 29 (1994), pp. 51-57, esp. p. 52, note 15 and fig. 1.

Apart from the present marble reduction, a number of copies and imitations of the bust have survived. For example, a plaster cast signed by Van Geel (Royal Archives, The Hague) and an imitation which, on good grounds, is attributed to Louis Royer (1793-1868), a pupil of Jan-Frans van Geel (Jean Louis’ father); it is dated 1818 (Museum Hof van Busleyden, Mechelen).⁵⁵W. Bergé, ‘Jean-Louis van Geel (1787-1852): Een portretbuste van kroonprins Willem (II)’, Antiek 29 (1994), pp. 51-57, esp. p. 53 and A. Jacobs, Welgevormd: Mechelse beeldhouwers in Europa (1780-1850), exh. cat. Mechelen (Lamot/Museum Schepenhuis) 2006, no. 74.

Nothing is known about the sculptor ‘C. Boret’, or alternatively ‘C. Bozet’. Neither name is mentioned in the archives of the academies of art at Mechelen and Antwerp, nor are any other works known with that signature. He might have been a pupil of Jean Louis van Geel’s who made the bust in Van Geel’s workshop as an exercise in reduction.⁶⁶W. Bergé, ‘Jean-Louis van Geel (1787-1852): Een portretbuste van kroonprins Willem (II)’, Antiek 29 (1994), pp. 51-57, esp. p. 55. Incidentally, a marble reduction of the above-mentioned Anna Paulovna bust also exists.⁷⁷Photo in Object File RMA. With thanks to Benoît Orban de Xviry. However, that unsigned bust does not resemble the present portrait of her husband, either in terms of size (h. 26.5 cm) or style.

Bieke van der Mark, 2026

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 438, with earlier literature; W. Bergé, Heimwee naar de klassieken: De beelden van Mathieu Kessels en zijn tijdgenoten, 1815-1840, exh. cat. Den Bosch (Noordbrabants Museum) 1994-95, p. 117; W. Bergé, ‘Jean-Louis van Geel (1787-1852): Een portretbuste van kroonprins Willem (II)’, Antiek 29 (1994), pp. 51-57, esp. p. 55

B. van der Mark, 2026, 'C. Bozet and after Jean-Louis van Geel, Bust of Prince William of Orange (1792-1849), Brussels, 1826', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20054848