Portrait of a Man

This portrait of a sixty-two-year-old man, like others by Van der Helst dating from the mid- to late 1640s, was influenced by Rembrandt’s most straightforward examples of the 1630s and early 1640s. The placement of the sitter to the left of centre, and his slight turn toward the viewer’s right, suggests that the portrait was originally provided with a pendant. The Portrait of a Lady Aged Fifty-four in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, was proposed as a fitting pendant.