Portrait of Joris de Caullery

In 1632 The Hague was the seat of the stadholder's court, and Rembrandt, newly set up in Amsterdam, was taking commissions from it. There he met Joris de Caullery, who kept an inn in The Hague and served as an officer in the city's civic guard, the armed citizens' militia. That is the role he chose to be painted in. He wears a steel gorget at his throat and a broad embroidered sash over a yellow-brown coat, one fist on his hip and a musket in his other hand. Later he went to sea and made a long naval career, including the Dutch wars with England. At the right Rembrandt signed RHL van Ryn and the date 1632, a monogram he soon gave up for his first name alone. After De Caullery's death in 1661 the portrait went to his daughter Josina, and it stayed with his family in The Hague until about 1750.