Girl by a High Chair

Govert Flinck trained in Rembrandt's studio and was one of his best pupils, and you can see the master in the loose, confident handling of the clothes. He saved his patience for the face, a girl of about three, dressed in adult finery and gold jewellery, painted with fine careful touches of light so your eye goes straight to her. She belongs to a rich Dutch family in 1640, near the height of the Republic's wealth. And look at the sweets laid out on the high chair beside her. They were made with sugar, and in 1640 the sugar reaching Dutch tables came from plantations in Dutch-held Brazil, worked by enslaved Africans.