The painter Jan de Wael and his wife Gertrud de Jode

In 1629 Jan de Wael was 70 or 71, and he had been part of Antwerp's art world for nearly half a century. He became a master in the painters' guild of Saint Luke in 1584 and its dean in 1595, and he also headed one of the city's archers' guilds, whose coat of arms he wears here on his sleeve. His wife, Geertruid de Jode, came from a family of engravers. Her father, Gerard de Jode, published maps, and her brother Pieter worked as an engraver too. They had been married since 1588. Van Dyck had a personal reason for painting this couple. In Genoa he had lived with their sons, Cornelis and Lucas, and had painted the two brothers in a double portrait of their own. Jan de Wael died in 1633, four years after he sat for this picture.