Prince Maurits with His Horse and Groom

Maurits, prince of Orange (1567-1625) and "stadholder" of the United Provinces, was very successful as the commander of the republic's military forces. The war with Spain dragged on for two decades after his death, but the course he established was decisive in ultimately achieving independence. Maurits is depicted in a field in a kind of "double portrait" with an immense dapple-gray war horse that he is training. He was famous as a breeder of horses for battle and is often shown with this horse. It may be the offspring of a prize dapple-gray Spanish war horse (a breed famous since antiquity), captured by Maurits's forces from the Spanish Habsburg commander Archduke Albert, bred with a heavier northern European war horse.