Bust of Piet Hein
Also titled Borstbeeld van Piet Hein
Hendrick de Keyser (II) (Amsterdam, 1613–1665)
1636
- Medium
- terracotta (clay material)
- Classification
- figure
- Dimensions
- height 79 cm x width 41 cm x depth 36 cm
- Museum
- Rijksmuseum
- Rights
- Public Domain Mark, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
About this work
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.
