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Hendrik Pothoven (1725-1795)
Stadholder Willem V and his family at the kermis on the Buitenhof. Signed and dated 1781. Panel, 61 × 85 cm.

The Hague, Gemeentemuseum, inv.nr. 34-26. Acquired in 1926.

In early May, every year from 1407 to 1885, the area around the Buitenhof in The Hague was transformed into a grounds for the court fair or hofkermis, the greatest event of its kind in the country. For the duration of the kermis a special freedom prevailed which was relished by everyone in the town. In earlier centuries the freedom was regulated by custom or even law: guilds relaxed their prohibitions, the sheriffs men looked the other way when feuds were fought out, the church gave unmarried young lovers its blessing. Artists traditionally took advantage of the kermis to sell their works from stalls in the streets to visiting outsiders.

By the late eighteenth century, the kermis had taken on manners, although Pothoven's depiction of it strikes us as a bit too well-behaved to be believed. The presence of the Stadholder and his family would have quieted things down a bit but not all that much: their informal visits were a traditional part of the celebration. In the seventeenth century, as Stadholder, Willem in would review the civic guard which paraded past his quarter of the inner court (the building on the right) and then go out in the streets with his Mary to buy presents. In a later year, as King William in of England, he once said that he would give 'a hundred, nay two hundred thousand guilders to be able to fly like a bird to the Hague kermis.' (Today a flight would not cost him much more than one-thousandth that amount.)

One report of a nineteenth-century royal visit to the kermis mentions that at the end of the festive day a ball was held at the court, at which a lottery was held with paintings and other works of art as prizes, including objects which had been bought at the kermis. Pothoven's painting is too precious to have been raffled off that way, but it may well have served as a souvenir for someone.

As it happens, the kermis of 1781 was the last one at which a stadholder of the Republic could relax with his family among a Dutch crowd. On September 26th of that year, a pamphlet entitled To the Netherlands people gave the impulse to a revolutionary movement that was not to abate until Willem was driven out of the country on January 18, 1795 (See nr. 52). It is something of an historical wonder that in 1815 a prince of Orange once more ruled the country, as King Willem I. We see him here, on the eve of the great cataclysm, as the nine-year-old son of the last stadholder.

Van Gelder 1937. Pippel 1941, pp. 137-148. Schama 1977, p-64.