Bust of Piet Hein

• Bust of Piet Hein
• Bust of Piet Hein (1577-1629)

BK-NM-2865

date, reverse side collar, incised in the wet clay: ‘1636’

Piet Hein fought in the Netherlands, the Mediterranean Sea, Asia, Africa, and America as a seaman. But he only becomes truly famous when he captures the Spanish Silver Fleet off the coast of Cuba in September 1628. For the Spanish the loss of that fleet is a financial catastrophe and for the Dutch Republic, quite the opposite, a tremendous triumph. Hein becomes enormously popular among the Dutch and is honoured everywhere. Just a year later, Hein dies in a skirmish with privateers from Ostend in the English Channel.

Benno van Tilburg, 'Piet Heyn en de verovering van de Zilvervloot', Rijksmuseum Kunstkrant 19 (1993) nr. 3, p. 19-22.

sculptor: attributed to Hendrick de Keyser (II), Amsterdam

1636

terracotta en hout met polychromie

height 79 cm x width 41 cm x depth 36 cm

Public domain

? Commissioned by the West India Company (WIC), for the West India House, Rotterdam, 1636;{R. van Luttervelt, `Herinneringen aan Piet Heyn in het Rijksmuseum´, _Bulletin Koninklijke Nederlandse Oudheidkundige Bond_ 7 (1954), cols. 154-62, esp. col. 145.} …; from the Koloniaal Magazijn, Amsterdam to the Ministry of Colonies, The Hague, 1857;{Note RMA.} transferred to the Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague, 1876; transferred to the museum, 1885

• Benno van Tilburg, 'Piet Heyn en de verovering van de Zilvervloot', Rijksmuseum Kunstkrant 19 (1993) nr. 3, p. 19-22.
• Documentatiemap.

To refer to this object, please use the following persistent URL:

https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/200611964