Hugo de Groot, or Hugo Grotius, was a child prodigy who graduated from Leiden University in 1597 at the age of 14 and received a doctorate in Roman law in Orléans two years later. After his studies, he worked first in The Hague as a lawyer and later as fiscal advocate at the Court of Holland. In 1613, he became Pensionary of Rotterdam and in 1617 a member of the Gecommitteerde Raden of Holland. His involvement with Johan van Oldenbarnevelt on the side of the Arminians led to his imprisonment in 1618 on the orders of Prince Maurits. In 1623, he escaped from prison and fled to Paris, where he first lived from a pension he received from Louis XIII and later served as Swedish ambassador. Grotius returned briefly to the northern Netherlands in 1631 in the belief that he might be pardoned, which, however, did not occur. On the return journey from a trip to Sweden in 1645, his ship sank and he died in Rostock. Grotius was a poet, translator of classical texts from Greek into Latin, and author of numerous legal, theological and historical writings.3 This is one of many studio replicas of a lost portrait executed by Van Mierevelt in 1631.4 Grotius himself refers to the 1631 sitting in his correspondence.5 The 1631 portrait is also known by way of a 1632 engraving by Willem Jacobsz Delff.6 Grotius apparently sat for Van Mierevelt a second time, as there are a number of bust-length replicas and one knee-length replica dated 1632 that show him differently, with a narrow goatee instead of a full chin beard and a fastened cloak instead of an open one revealing his doublet.7 A number of the replicas of Grotius’s portraits remained with members of his extended family, for whom they were undoubtedly executed. It is known of two others that Grotius himself ordered them in 1637 for acquaintances in Paris.8 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. 197.