Portrait of Baron Willem van Liere

1662

In the 17th century, the State came to be an important commissioner of public funerary monuments for ‘national heroes’. Grand tombs were ordered especially after 1650, when various naval battles were fought against the English. Rombout Verhulst was the leading specialist in funerary monuments. He also made the tomb for Lieutenant-Admiral Maerten Tromp (1598–1653) in Delft, for which this terracotta is a design.