Porträt des Maerten Soolmans

Rembrandt painted this full-length in 1634 for a wedding. The groom, Marten Soolmans, was in his early twenties and heir to an Antwerp family that had fled north to Amsterdam and grown rich refining sugar, in a plant they had named Purgatory for the heat of the work. He spends that money on the canvas. He is dressed head to foot in black silk, with a wide lace collar, and enormous rosettes of lace bloom on each shoe. Full-length standing portraits like this were usually reserved for royalty, so a merchant's son having himself painted this way said a great deal. Rembrandt had just arrived in the city and was hungry for exactly these clients. The shoe rosettes alone hold more paint than some of his faces.