Portrait of Robert Muys and Maria Nozeman

Nicolaes Muys painted his younger brother here, the Rotterdam engraver Robert Muys, with his wife Maria Nozeman, and set the couple inside a painted stone window. Maria sits in front with her sewing, a silver thimble on her middle finger. Robert stands behind her with one hand on her shoulder, and in the other he holds up one of his own prints.

Through the open door behind them is his workshop. The screen in front of its window was an engraver's tool, used to soften the daylight falling on the copper plate so the fine cut lines could be seen. On the table stand an open book and a silver tea urn, an expensive and fashionable piece at the time, and grapes and peaches lie on the sill. Nicolaes signed the panel with the year in Roman numerals, 1778, when Robert was 36 and Maria 22.