Portrait of Jaapgen Carelsdr.

Jaapgen was 70 when she sat for this, and Rembrandt wrote her age beside her head, with his signature and the year 1635 below it. She was the daughter of a Leiden glazier from a distinguished family, and she probably posed in Amsterdam around 27 March that year, when she came to stand witness at a granddaughter's baptism. The panel is only about 20 centimetres high, yet her face has real depth, partly because her shoulders are turned on a diagonal and partly through soft shadow, for instance in the fold of her white cap. This portrait and its pair, of her husband Jan van der Pluym, then vanished from view for almost two centuries. They went to auction in 2023, where the Dutch Holterman family bought them and lent them to the Rijksmuseum.