of Charles II, painting the portiait of the King and a number of other persons. In spite of soine
doubt24, the portraits which have been handed down to us, representing sometim.es outstanding
Englishmen such as: Andrew Marvell, lord Carnavon, Charles Buck, Duke Oxford Aubrey
de Vere, the First Earl of Shaftesbury, members of the Stuart family and Charles II himself,
seem to leave no doubt that the painter did stay in England. Some of those persons might per-
haps have been portrayed in the Hague, e.g., Andrew Marvell, or Charles II25, but the only
portrait in this group, fully signed and dated 1663, i.e., The Porlrait of the First Earl of Shaftes-
bury might have been painted in England only2S. Apart from that, it is known from Peter
Lely's last will that he had contacts with Pietei Nason and owned him 16, 15 pounds27.
Since voyages of Dutch artists, and particularly the Hague portraitists, to the British Isles
were by no means a rarity at that time, Nason's stay at the English court is quite likely28.

In 1664 Nason stayed for a while in Amsterdam29, and then in the Hague. In the following
year he worked, for van Wassenaer and van der Does families, as it can be guessed from his
dated Works30.

So far it was generally accepted (F. Kugler's hint), that Nason belonged to the group of the
numerous Hague painters working at the Brandenburg court in Berlin31. As evidence the re-
presentative portraits of Frederick Wilhelm von Hohenzollern and his wife, Louise Henriettę
van Oranje were adduced32. According to P. Seidel the portraits might have been done in the
Hague visited by the elector in 16 6 633. The programme of the e!ector's stay (during which he
was accompanied by Johan Maurits Nassau-Siegen) contradicts the above assumption. The
three days they spent in the Hague were devoted mostly to the political talks i.a., with the
young Duke of Oranje, the representatives of the State Council of the Republic, and the French
envoys34. Nason couldn't have painted these portraits in Berlin, either, because the Brandenburg
elector with his wife and the court sińce November 1665, till October 20th 1666, stayed at Cleve,
with the Governor Johan Mauritz Nassau-Siegen; later the court returned to Berlin, and Louise
Henriettę, seriously ill after giving birth at Cleve to Prince Louis, went to the Hague on her
last journey35. In view of these facts it is assumed that in 1666 Pieter Nason stayed for some
time at Cleve and portrayed the couple and members of the family (see also: catalogue No. 9).

In 1668 Nason was active in the Hague again38 and worked mainly for the House of Orange.
In January 1668 Cosimo Medici, the futurę Great Prince of Tuscany arrived in Hague. During
his first trip to the Netherlands he visited a number of Dutch and Flemish towns, where, he

24. A. Wurzbach, op. cit.

25. Acc. to Margaret R. Toynbee— "Adriaen Hanneman and the English Court in Exile", The Burlington Magazine, 1950,
p. 75,— Charles II was painted by Nason when the court was in exile.

26. C.H. Collins Baker, op. cit., II, p. 2ff.

27. C.H. Collins Baker, op. cit., I, p. 142; see: G. Gerson, Ausbreitung und Nachuiirkung der hollandischen Malerei des XVII
Jahrhunderls, Haarlem, 1942, p. 382 ff.

28. As to the Dutch painters in England, see: ibidem.

29. C.H. Collins Baker, op. cit., II — gives an illegible piece of information that after his return to the country, he lived
in various places.

30. See: Meisterwerke der Porlriitmalerei auf der Ausstellung im Haag, Miinchen, 1903, no. 98, 99, 101.

31. F. Kugler, Kleine Schriften und Studien zur Kunstgeschichte, Stuttgart, 1854, III, p. 611.

32. From the collections of the Castlc in Charlottenburg (inv. no. 3312) as well as the Imperial Castlein Berlin (up to 1945).
Two other portraits were also to provide evidence: Portrait oj' the Elector in the Coronation Garment from the col-
lection of the Kónigsberg Castle (up to 1945), which is a replica of the Charlottenburg painting, as well as Portrait oj-
an Unknown Man from the Hohenzollern Family formcrly in the collection of the Imperial Castle (see: S. Parthey
Deutscher Bildersaal, Berlin, 1864, II, p. 176), erroneously regarded as the portrait of the Elector himself.

33. P. Seidel, "Die Bcziehungen des Grossen Kurfiirsten und Konig Friedrich I. zur nicderlandischen Kunst", Jahrbuch der
kóniglich-preusaischen Kunstsammlungen, XI, 1890, p. 181; the same "Die Darstellungen des Grossen Kurfursten
gemeinsam mit seiner ersten Gemahlin Louise Henriettę van Oranje", Hohenzollern-Jahrbuch, 1903, p. 66.

34. See: G. Galland, Der Groasc Kurftirsl und Morilz von Nassau der Brasilianer, Frankfurt am/M, 1893, p. Uff.

35. ibidem, p. 58ff, 82ff.

36. F. Schlie, Besehreibendes Verzcichniss der Werke dltcr Meisler..., Schwerin, 1882, p. 267.

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