Princess Mary Stuart, born in 1631, was the eldest daughter of King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria. She married William, son and heir of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange and Stadtholder of the United Provinces, in May 1641, and moved to the Dutch republic the following year. In 1650 she gave birth to the couple’s only child, Willem – later King William III of England.
The present portrait of Mary is one of three versions, painted during the last year of Van Dyck’s life, all of which show the Princess in the same pose – and is almost certainly the best preserved of these.
In common with much of Van Dyck’s output from 1641, the artist seems likely to have employed an assistant in the execution of parts of the drapery, however both the head and the hands are painted with a delicacy and assurance typical of the master’s own hand in this period. The colours of the Princess’s dress – orange with blue ribbons, the colours of the House of Orange-Nassau – differ from the other known versions and suggests that this may have been painted for the Princess’s mother-in-law, the Princess of Orange.
