In 2015 the Rijksmuseum first showed Willem II's stuffed horse Veksi, a Waterloo veteran

In 2015 the Rijksmuseum displayed the stuffed horse of Willem II to the public for the first time. The beloved horse of the King of the Netherlands, Wexy, took part in the Battle of Waterloo together with his gallant master, and the two were wounded together. After the favourite's death, Willem Frederik, Prince of Orange, asked for his body to be made into a stuffed figure. And this did indeed preserve the horse's memory: the wooden figure stood in the dining room of the royal palace of Noordeinde in The Hague for at least another 50 years after the death of Willem II, who had long been outlived by the old Wexy. In the photograph of the palace dining room the horse stands before a portrait of his master, but the latter is already mounted on another horse, painted 25 years after Wexy's death. Given that King Willem II is regarded in the Netherlands as a national hero and a doughty warrior, his horse, who likewise distinguished himself in the wars against Napoleon, is to some extent revered as a hero too. So it is hardly surprising that the large bezoar (a stomach stone) found when the animal was opened up became a museum exhibit, and in the end took its place in the collections of the Art Society in The Hague