(Ernest, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel). Secundum voluntatem tuam Domine.

A rare, full length, delicately etched portrait of the Catholic convert and military commander Ernest of Hesse-Rheinfels, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel (1623-1693). He stands beside a column on which is carved his coat of arms, wearing full armour, and wh his helmet resting on a table at his side. In the background is a view of the town of Marburg, with a view of the splendid palace of Schloss Marburg in the distance. In 1642 he entered the Hessian army, proving himself an able commander of the Hessian troops who fought on the side of Sweden during the Thirty Years’ War. While visiting the Hessian General Geyso, who was in prison at Gesecke, he was himself arrested and taken prisoner to Paderborn. His social intercourse here with the royal army chaplain laid the foundation of his controversial conversion. After the Peace of Westphalia he took up the government of his portion of Hesse. His desire to establish a collateral line independent of Cassel brought him in 1650 to Vienna, where his conversion to the Catholic Church was effected by the Augustinian Alfons Staimos.