[1] He wears a green turban, white tabard over pantaloons, and a jacket; around his waist is a golden belt, to which prayer beads are attached, and over his shoulder is a shawl.

[3] Further to the left are various Dutch officers, identified by the historian and Diponegoro biographer Peter Carey as Colonel Louis du Perr, Lieutenant-Colonel W.A.

[10] In 1825, after declaring himself Ratu Adil and his enemies infidels for their lax practice of Islam, he began a war against the reigning sultan and the Dutch colonial government.

[11] On 28 March 1830, with most other guerrilla leaders captured, Diponegoro was invited to come to Lieutenant General De Kock's home in Magelang to negotiate an end of hostilities and guaranteed safety of passage.

[11] Saleh returned to Java in 1851 after a lengthy period studying in Europe, during which he had claimed a familial relationship to the guerrilla and protested his treatment at the hands of the Dutch colonial administration.

[16] The artist's use of color is reminiscent of the nature works by Horace Vernet and Eugène Delacroix, both of whom Saleh was familiar with, and De Kock's pose appears to have been influenced by Italian Renaissance paintings.

A preliminary sketch was completed later that year; Saleh had previously visited a cousin in Magelang, where Diponegoro was arrested and was thus aware of the area and the setting.

[9] After several years in the Palace in The Hague, The Arrest of Pangeran Diponegoro was hung in Bronbeek, a home for Royal Colonial Military veterans.

[7] Owing to the amount of damage the painting had sustained and its historical value, in 2012 the Goethe-Institut and Ansari Djojohadikusumo Foundation arranged for The Arrest of Pangeran Diponegoro to be restored by conservator Susanne Erhards of the Köln Group.

[21][7] This began with a cleaning shortly before the work was displayed in the National Gallery of Indonesia, followed by an analysis of the composition of the varnish (allowing it to be removed).

The Indonesian historian Harsja Bachtiar wrote that the gifting of the painting to William III was evidence that there was no struggle, but rather the relationship of a courtier and his king, or of an artist and his patron.

[27] The poet Taufiq Ismail, after viewing the painting in 1995, wrote a short quatrain regarding it:[28] Aku termangu melihat lukisan itu... Kau beri adegan abad ke 19 yang begitu tegang... seorang Pangeran, pangeran, ditangkap dengan khianat Wahai Raden Saleh Syarif Bustaman, betapa padat dan kaya isyarat lukisan Tuan I'm stunned, seeing that painting... You've given us such a tense 19th-century scene A Prince, prince, caught through treachery Oh Raden Saleh Syarif Bustaman, how rich the symbolism in your painting, Sir In 2001, Yogyakarta-based artist Rudi Winarso created a parody of the painting, which depicted Raden Saleh showing The Arrest of Pangeran Diponegoro to a clearly moved Diponegoro, as the two are being held prisoner by Pieneman, De Kock, and King William III; Winarso stated that the painting was meant to highlight the contrasting points of view presented by Saleh and Pieneman in their depictions of Diponegoro's capture.

[28] In 2022, produced by Visinema Pictures, Jagartha, Astro Shaw, and Blibli, directed by Angga Dwimas Sasongko, this painting is used as the main plot of a heist action film entitled Stealing Raden Saleh, starring Iqbaal Ramadhan, Angga Yunanda, Rachel Amanda, Umay Shahab, Aghniny Haque and Ari Irham.