Portrait of Frederik Bannier (1635-1672)

By about 1661 the Dutch Republic was rich and at peace, and a prosperous couple could commission a painter as sought-after as Gerard ter Borch to fix them on canvas. This portrait is one half of a pair. Frederik Bannier stands here in sober black, shown full-length on a modest scale, and on the companion canvas his wife Johanna Quadacker faced him, the two pictures made to hang together and look across at one another. Ter Borch is loved for his hushed indoor scenes, and he brought the same fine brush to this commission, catching the soft gleam of black silk and the lace at the cuff. Both sitters were dead by 1672, husband and wife in the same year, as French armies poured over the border in the disaster the Dutch still call the Rampjaar.