Portrait of a Man

A date is written in the ledger this man is holding, the ninth of March 1529. That year Maarten van Heemskerck painted him and his wife as a matching pair, and the two panels are among the earliest known portraits of Dutch citizens. He sits counting coins at his table, the account book open in his other hand, with his seal, a stick of sealing wax and a ball of string laid out in front of him. The small mirror on the wall probably stands for prudence. For a long time the couple were named as Pieter Gerritsz Bicker, mintmaster of Amsterdam, and his wife Anna Codde. In 1976 that identification was rejected, partly because the ages painted on the frames did not fit their birth dates, and the museum now gives the names only as a possibility. His frame gives his age as 34.