The Leeuwarden Series: Commanders-in-Chief of the Forces of the States-General Daniel de Hertaing belonged to a noble family from Hainaut. He is first mentioned in the history books for leading 2,000 infantrymen and four cavalry divisions in the defence of Bergen-op-Zoom against Parma’s troops (1588). As lieutenant-colonel in the service of the States-General, he distinguished himself at the Battle of Nieuwpoort (1600) and during the defence of Ostend (1601-04). At the beginning of the Twelve Years’ Truce he obtained the seigniory of Heemskerk, which the States-General permitted him to rename Marquette after his confiscated lands in the southern Netherlands. De Hertaing was knighted in 1619 by Prince Maurits in a political manoeuvre to stack the ranks of the nobility in his favour and against that of Van Oldenbarnevelt. The previous year, after the death of Philips Willem, De Hertaing had taken possession of Breda for Maurits. When the Spanish made incursions into Brabant and Gelderland after the conclusion of the truce in the first half of the 1620s, De Hertaing was forced back into the military arena, despite his advanced age. His blunders led to considerable gains by the Spanish, and tarnished the good reputation he had acquired at the beginning of the century.43 The prototype for the present portrait is part of the series of officers’ portraits probably painted for Prince Maurits by Van Ravesteyn and now part of the collection of the Mauritshuis.44 The prototype shows De Hertaing at three-quarter length and is dated 1612. Jonathan Bikker, 2007 See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 378.