Bartholomeus van der Helst: Portrait of Jan Jacobsz. Hinlopen and Lucia Wijbrants (1665)

(Private collection)

The two sitters of this painting are just married and had this painting commissioned to celebrate the happy occasion. The man is Jan Jacobsz. Hinlopen, he was a wealthy Dutch cloth merchant, standard-bearer and Lieutenant in the civic guard, real estate developer in the Jordaan (Amsterdam), alderman in the city council and an art collector. The woman is his second wife Lucia Wijbrants. in the background you can see Leonore Huydecoper van Maarsseveen, the first wife of Jan Jacobsz. Hinlopen. She died after a miscarriage. Leonore is holding a child, probably his youngest daughter Geertrui who died of the measles. Jan Jacobsz. Hinlopen himself died only a year later in 1666 at the age of 40. Lucia Wijbrants (on the painting she is 27) eventually remarried with Johan van Nellesteyn, a mayor of Utrecht. This painting is from 1665.