Portrait of a Silversmith

1630 · Private collection

portrait

This painting belongs to a group of small full-length portraits in meticulously delineated interiors, executed by the Amsterdam artist Thomas de Keyser in the 1620s and 30s, which were extremely influential upon the development of Dutch portrait painting in the second quarter of the seventeenth century. In each case the sitter is placed in a rich interior, informally posed with lively gestures, looking confidently out at the viewer. The first of this series is de Keyser's splendid portrait of the Stadholder's secretary Constantijn Huygens and his clerk of 1627 (National Gallery, London), which seems to have been an immediate success.

About the Artist

Thomas de Keyser

1596 – 1667

Son and pupil of Hendrick de Keyser (1565-1621), the outstanding Dutch sculptor, Thomas de Keyser was municipal architect to the City of Amsterdam from 1662 until his death (he added the cupola to van Campen's Town Hall), but he is better known as a portrait painter. He was indeed, Amsterdam's leading portraitist before being overtaken in popularity by Rembrandt in the 1630s. His life-size portraits look stiff compared with Rembrandt's and he is more attractive and original on a small scale. Constantin Huygens and His Clerk (National Gallery, London, 1627) is an excellent example of one of his small portraits of full-length figures in an interior, forerunners of the conversation pieces. His small equestrian portraits were also a new type ( Pieter Schout, Rijksmuseum, 1660).

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