Cornelis de Graeff

Cornelis de Graeff was born on 15 October 1599 in the house De Keyser in Amsterdam. A childhood accident left his left arm crippled, which can still be seen in his portraits. In 1626 he made a grand tour of Europe with his brother Dirk, and in Paris they were warmly received by the jurist Hugo Grotius.

Regent, financier and VOC chief

In 1638 he took his late father's seat on the city council, in 1639 he became an alderman and in 1643 he was first chosen as one of Amsterdam's four burgomasters, an office he would hold many more times. From 1636 he was also a director of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), and from 1646 to 1664 its president. He was lord of Zuid-Polsbroek and, on the city's behalf, lord of Sloten, Osdorp and Amstelveen.

De Graeff belonged to the States Party, the regents who wanted to limit the power of the House of Orange. With his nephew by marriage Johan de Witt, who had married De Graeff's niece Wendela Bicker, he formed the backbone of the period without a stadtholder that began in 1650. De Witt often asked him for advice.

A palace for the city

He was one of the prime movers behind the Peace of Münster in 1648, which ended the war with Spain. That same year work began on a new city hall on Dam Square, a project he launched with Joan Huydecoper. His son Jacob was one of four children who laid the foundation stone on 29 October 1648, and the building opened in 1655. Today it is the Royal Palace. De Graeff commissioned eight paintings for it from Govert Flinck and supported poets such as Vondel and Jan Vos.

He also has a link to Rembrandt's Night Watch: Captain Frans Banninck Cocq was his brother-in-law. His family motto read "Mors sceptra ligonibus aequat": death makes sceptres and hoes equal. He died in 1664 and was buried in his own chapel in the Oude Kerk.