Ritratto di Isaac Abrahamsz. Massa

Isaac Massa was not just another wealthy sitter. He had spent years in Moscow as a merchant and grain trader, learned Russian, drew some of the earliest Western maps of the country and wrote the first European account of Siberia. Hals painted him in 1626 leaning back over his chair, one arm slung across the top rail, turning to us with an easy half-smile, a strikingly informal pose for the time and a sign the two men were friends. In his hand he holds a sprig of holly, an old emblem of constancy and friendship. Behind him a distant landscape may nod to the far-off places his trade had taken him.