Portrait of a Goldsmith

The man in this small portrait wears a brocade gown trimmed with fur and a fur hat, and he makes a point of showing his rings. In a city like Bruges around 1505, a craftsman could sit for a portrait with the same assurance as a nobleman, and the rings may be the sign of his trade. It has long been assumed that he is a goldsmith, and probably one Gerard David knew well, his father-in-law Jacob Cnoop the Younger.

Cnoop worked as a goldsmith in Bruges and served as dean of the goldsmiths' guild. His daughter Cornelia, David's wife, was a painter herself. The panel is under 30 centimetres high. It may have passed through the collection of the Marquess of Hamilton in London in the 1640s, and by 1659 it belonged to Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, whose pictures later came to Vienna.