Willem van Lier was born in September 1653 in Amsterdam, the son of Willem van Lier (1620-1654) and Mary van Reygersberch (1632-1673). His paternal grandfather was both ambassador to Venice and France in the first half of the eighteenth century. As a member of landed gentry he inherited the family titles of Lord Oosterwijk and Katwijk on the death of his father in 1654, later knighted in his own right in 1702. He married in 1681 Geertruid Anna van Wassenaer (1659-1694) and with her had four children. He appears to have had a relationship and an illegitimate child prior to this by Helena Juijst, who died tragically young in 1679. He was a member of the Admiralty in Amsterdam and the Rhineland Board. He died in February 1706 at the family home in the Dutch coastal village of Katwijk.

Painted in 1730 this portrait is by Johannes, the youngest son of Hendrik Carre (c.1656-1721). His father and three brothers were all painters working principally in The Hague in the late 17th and 18th century. Painting mainly portraits and historical subjects he seems to have secured a steady practice; this particular portrait being posthumous, probably after an earlier version from life by his father. Johanness style was certainly close to that of his fathers and good comparison can be made to a work in the National Gallery of Ireland. Depicted in armour, circa 1680, the sitter appears at once both a warlike defender of the Dutch cause and an elegant, swaggering aristocrat. As a member of the Admiralty he would have been involved with the recent Franco-Dutch war and the third Anglo-Dutch war in the 1670s.

Exhibited: Statements of Self-Importance – The Portrait in Europe 1660-1950, Langston Gallery, London, 2009