It is 23 May 1618. A crowd has gathered on Dam Square to welcome Prince Maurits of Orange (1567–1625). In the background the old town hall can be seen while on the right is the triumphal arch that the Amsterdam rhetoricians had raised for the stadholder of Holland and Zeeland. Maurits has just disembarked from his boat and is greeted by the four burgomasters. On the boat trumpeters are playing, while civic guardsmen fire a salute. The arrival of Maurits was a demonstration of solidarity between the stadholder and the mighty, orthodox Calvinist city government. This lesson in national history was presented at the Living Masters exhibition of 1842. The painters kept closely to the written account of this historic event.