Three Regentesses and the ‘House Mother’ of the Amsterdam Lepers’ Asylum

In 1624 the governors of Amsterdam's lepers' asylum ordered portraits for their own meeting room, one of the men and this one of the women. Three regentesses sit here with the house mother, the woman who ran the household day to day. Only in 2024 were they all given names again: Trijntje ten Bergh, Anna Willekens and Trijntje Felincx, with the house mother Marritje Roelofs. Behind them hangs a painting within the painting, the Gospel story of Lazarus and the rich man. Lazarus is the beggar covered in sores who lay at the rich man's gate and was refused even the crumbs from his table, and his name had long been tied to the care of lepers. Valckert signed the panel and dated it 1624. It moved to the town hall in 1860, and the City of Amsterdam has lent it to the Rijksmuseum since 1885.