William the Silent, Prince of Orange, wearing magnificent gold etched armour and a lace neck ruff: detail of oval stained glass portrait in Nieuwe Kerk or New Church at Delft, South Holland, Netherlands. William led the Dutch rebellion against Spanish rule and was assassinated in Delft. The church has been the burial-place of the royal House of Orange-Nassau ever since.
Delft, South Holland, Netherlands: the face of William the Silent, Prince of Orange and founder of the royal House of Orange-Nassau. William wears magnificent gold etched armour in this detail of an early-1900s oval stained glass portrait near his tomb in the Nieuwe Kerk or New Church, burial-place of Dutch royalty ever since his assassination in Delft in 1584. William the Silent, born in 1533 and also known as William the Taciturn and William of Orange, became Prince of Orange in 1544 and led the Dutch revolt against Spanish Hapsburg rule that resulted in the Eighty Years’ War and eventual independence for the United Provinces in 1648. He was the ancestor of the present Dutch monarchy and in the Netherlands, he is known as Vader des Vaderlands (Father of the Fatherland). Like Delft’s nearby Oude Kerk or Old Church, the Gothic Nieuwe Kerk, begun in 1396, lost all of its medieval glass in a devastating fire in 1536 and a massive gunpowder explosion in 1654 known as the Dutch Thunderclap. It took nearly three centuries for new stained glass to be installed and in the interim, the windows were partly bricked up and partly fitted with plain glass.
Size: 3008px × 2000px
Location: Delft, South Holland, Netherlands.
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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