[press release]
Stamps depicting the life of fifty-year-old King Willem-Alexander

The Hague, 24 April 2017 – PostNL is issuing a special stamp sheetlet honouring King Willem-Alexander’s fiftieth birthday. The ten pictures show the various periods in the life of the king. The images are featured on six stamps and on four tabs to the left and right of the stamps.

Nine of the photos on the stamp sheetlet were taken by photo journalist Vincent Mentzel. The tenth photo was taken by Prince Claus of a young Willem-Alexander with a football in the garden of Drakensteyn Castle. Mentzel sees this photo as an homage to his father. Together with designer Irma Boom, he opted to use black and white photos for the informal moments of the king’s life. The colour images show the more formal moments of King Willem-Alexander.

Journalistic photos of a Head of State
For this stamp sheetlet, Mentzel and Boom made a selection of historic photos from the photography book Koninklijke Foto’s [Royal Photos] – Vincent Mentzel. “The photos in this book show Willem-Alexander’s personality and his tastes. It’s perhaps most clearly shown in the photo taken in Rotterdam. It has it all: the smile, the flag, the water, the boat, the Willemsbrug. The other photos feature more active aspects, like the one of him walking down the street on a state visit to China, or of his time in the navy. They’re not glamour photos; they’re photo journalism. You see a boy who will go on to become Head of State. And you see the man he is now,” Mentzel says.

Availability
Each ‘Willem-Alexander 50’ stamp sheetlet consists of six stamps marked with ‘Nederland 1’, which can be used for items weighing up to 20g destined for mail in the Netherlands. These stamps will be available from 24 April at all Bruna shops and via Collectclub.nl. The stamps are valid until further notice.