Huygens, Constantijn (
b The Hague, 4 Sept. 1596;
d The Hague, 28 Mar. 1687). Dutch diplomat, writer, patron, and collector. Huygens was ‘a well-travelled, cultivated man who combined a full life of service to his country with a mastery of the polite accomplishments’ ( Seymour Slive,
Dutch Painting: 1600–1800, 1995); he spoke six languages, played several musical instruments, and his writings included a translation into Dutch of some of the poems of John Donne. Early in his career he worked in the Dutch embassies in Venice and London, and in 1625 he was appointed secretary to the stadholder (head of the Dutch state), Prince Frederick Henry of Orange. He held similar posts under Frederick Henry's successors until his own death at the age of 90. His duties included being court art adviser, and in this role he devised the iconographical scheme for the decoration of the Oranjezaal (Orange Hall) of the Huis ten Bosch, a newly built royal villa (designed by Pieter
Post) just outside The Hague. After the death of Prince Frederick Henry in 1647 it was decided to decorate the central hall of the building with murals honouring him. These were painted in 1648–52; the team of Dutch and Flemish artists involved, overseen by Jacob van
Campen, included Salomon de
Bray, Caesar van
Everdingen, Gerrit van
Honthorst, Jacob
Jordaens, and Jan
Lievens. Some of the individual contributions are impressive, but overall the scheme has not generally been judged a success; when
Reynolds saw it in 1781 he commented: ‘The different hands that have been employed here make variety it is true; but it is variety of wretchedness.’ In 1629–31 Huygens wrote a journal-cum-autobiography in Latin and this contains interesting comments about contemporary artists, notably Lievens and
Rembrandt. Lievens was one of several artists who painted Huygens's portrait; another was Thomas de
Keyser (1627, NG, London).
His son
Constantijn Huygens the Younger (1628–97) was a diplomat and draughtsman (his drawings are mainly landscapes, many of them made on his official travels). Another son, Christiaan Huygens (1629–95), was a music theorist, physicist, and astronomer—‘after Newton, the most influential physical scientist of the late 17th century’ (
Cambridge Dictionary of Scientists, 1996).
