The Governors of the Archers' Civic Guard of Amsterdam (Guild of Saint Sebastian)

Amsterdam's longbow archers belonged to the guild of Saint Sebastian, one of the city's three civic guard companies, and in 1653 its four governors had Van der Helst paint them with the guild's silver. The large group portrait now hangs in the Rijksmuseum. This canvas is a smaller, slightly varied version, and it settles two questions about the big one. The Amsterdam picture reads 1657, but the 7 was painted later over a 3, while the slate on the floor here carries the signature and the original year, 1653. And the big canvas was later cut down at the right, where this one still shows the governors' sons with their bows. Oddly, the names chalked on the slate are the sons', not the fathers'. The man at the far left, holding a gilt cup, is Frans Banning Cock, the captain at the centre of Rembrandt's Night Watch, and he is also the first known owner of this version. It was bought for Louis XVI in 1784, and when the Louvre opened as a public museum in 1793 it went on show under a wrong title, A Prize Awarded by Burgomasters.