Portrait of a Man

This well preserved painting represents the peak of Gossart’s portraiture. In terms of its ambitious composition and the mastery illusion inn depicting such a wide variety of objects, it is unparalleled in his oeuvre. It joins a group of occupational portraits that had begun to appear by the middle of the fifteenth century, with examples such as St Eligius in His Workshop by Petrus Christus, and became increasingly popular in the early sixteenth century with paintings by Bernaert van Orley, Quentin Massys, Maerten van Heemskerck, Hans Holbein, and Marinus van Reymerswaele.

The sitter of the present painting has been identified by the objects on his desk as either a banker or a merchant. According to a recent research, he is Jan Jacobsz. Snoeck (1510-1585), a descendant of a noble family of Gorinchem, who held important posts, including alderman, in his town.