Portrait of Hugo Grotius, aged 15

Details

JACQUES DE GHEYN II (1565-1629)
Portrait of Hugo Grotius, aged 15
engraving, 1599, on laid paper, without watermark, a fine impression of the first state (of two), with margins on three sides, trimmed on the platemark at right, with a strip of paper added to the right sheet edge, otherwise in very good condition
Plate 89 x 107 mm., Sheet 133 x 105 mm.

Provenance

British Museum, London (Lugt 302), with their duplicate stamp (Lugt 305), signed by John Gere, Keeper of Prints & Drawings, 1973-81.
With Christopher Mendez, London.
Acquired from the above, on 6 April 1998.

Literature

New Hollstein 246

Special Notice

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Brought to you by

Tim Schmelcher

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Lot Essay

Hugo Grotius (1583 -1645) or Hugo de Groot was an intellectual prodigy who, at the age of 16 - around the time of this portrait - was appointed advocate in The Hague and had published his first book. He became the leading legal scholar of his age and the first to formulate the idea of the rule of law between states and nations, and thus laid the theoretical foundations for the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years' War.

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