Pendant portraits of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit

The

pendant A pendant is a loose-hanging piece of jewellery, generally attached by a small loop to a necklace, which may be known as a "pendant necklace". A pendant earring is an earring with a piece hanging down. Its name stems from the Latin word ' ...

''portraits of Marten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit'' are a pair of full-length wedding portraits by Rembrandt. They were painted on the occasion of the marriage of Marten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit in 1634. Formerly owned by the Rothschild family, they became jointly owned by the

Louvre Museum The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

and the Rijksmuseum in 2015 after both museums managed to contribute half of the purchase price of €160 million, a record for works by Rembrandt.

History

The portraits were painted by Rembrandt upon the occasion of the wedding of Marten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit in 1634. Although the subjects were painted individually, the portraits have been kept together since their inception. Unlike many 17th-century portrait pairs, these two have always hung side by side in various collections based in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

. They are also unusual in Rembrandt's oeuvre for their size and the fact that they show the subjects at full length. Appearing in period inventories at regular intervals since their creation, together they form part of Rembrandt's core oeuvre against which other paintings with a more questionable lineage are compared. The subjects Marten Soolmans and his wife Oopjen Coppit are dressed as befits a pair of wealthy Amsterdam newlyweds. Though most in the art world agree these paintings should remain together, it became impossible for France to keep them within its borders, as the Louvre was unable to guarantee the necessary funding required to keep the ministry of culture from providing an export permit. The paintings have not been declared French national heritage.

Portrait of Marten Soolmans

''Portrait of Marten Soolmans (1613-1641)'' was documented by Hofstede de Groot in 1915, who wrote:

Portrait of Oopjen Coppit

''Portrait of Oopjen Coppit (1611-1689)'' was documented by Hofstede de Groot in 1915, who wrote: Oopjen is wearing a flat lace collar with matching wrist collars in the latest fashion. Other Amsterdam brides of the regency class wore millstone collars well into the 1640s. She is also wearing a pearl necklace and a pearl bracelet, and pearls were considered more valuable than diamonds at that time. The format of the paintings showing the couple at full length was the most expensive form of marriage pendant and could only fit in a house with high ceilings. According to family inventories, they also owned another Rembrandt depicting the Holy Family. It is assumed that this is the Holy Family now in Munich, as that is also dated to 1634.

Identity of the sitters

The paintings were known as the "Portrait of Meneer Day" and "Portrait of Mevrouw Day" for over a century. He and his wife, who married 9 June 1633, were only properly identified in the 20th-century. The confusion of the names came about because after Marten died, Oopjen remarried Captain Maerten Pietersz. Daij, and she outlived this second husband as well. After her death the paintings remained in the Daij or Daey family and members of that family assumed the portraits were of Daij and his first wife.

2016 sale

The joint purchase of these paintings was made by the Rijksmuseum and the Louvre on February 1, 2016. For the first time since 60 years, they were exhibited at the Louvre on March 10, 2016 until June 13, then for another 3 months at the Rijksmuseum, before their restoration. The intergovernmental agreement will keep these pendants together, alternately at the Louvre again, then at the Rijksmuseum for five years, followed by periods of eight years. They consequently may not be lent to other institutions.

Provenance

The portraits were in the possession of the subjects' heirs until their sale in 1877 to

Gustave Samuel de Rothschild Gustave Samuel James de Rothschild, Baron de Rothschild (17 February 1829 in Paris – 28 November 1911 in Paris) was a French banker and scion of the French branch of the Rothschild family. He was the second son of James Mayer de Rothschild ...

, a French banker. They were lent for exhibition once only, to the Rijksmuseum in 1956 for the artist's 350th birthday. Before being sold, they were hung in a large hall in the Van Loon collection, described by Eugène Fromentin in 1877 with the remark that they were examples of Rembrandt at his best and were painted in the same period that Rembrandt painted his '' Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp'', traditionally marking the beginning of his career in Amsterdam. Clearly, the flamboyance of these young newlyweds did more to launch Rembrandt's career as a portrait painter for the Amsterdam upper class than his sober depiction of a class of serious students in Leiden. The entire Van Loon collection was sold to Rothschild for 40,000 pounds, which at the time was over a million francs.

Wilhelm von Bode Wilhelm von Bode (10 December 1845 – 1 March 1929) was a German art historian and museum curator. Born Arnold Wilhelm Bode in Calvörde, he was ennobled in 1913. He was the creator and first curator of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, now c ...

was impressed enough to include both in his set of 595

photogravure Photogravure (in French ''héliogravure'') is a process for printing photographs, also sometimes used for reproductive intaglio printmaking. It is a photo-mechanical process whereby a copper plate is grained (adding a pattern to the plate) and ...

s for his eight-volume 1898 treatise on Rembrandt. Fromentin and Bode had identified the paintings as portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Daey, but it was the Amsterdam historian

Isabella Henriette van Eeghen Isabella Henriette van Eeghen (3 February 1913 – 26 November 1996), usually cited as I. H. van Eeghen, was a Dutch historian who worked for the Stadsarchief Amsterdam. Early life and education Van Eeghen was born in Amsterdam as the daughter o ...

who painstakingly traced their ownership to their original inventories and established the identities of the portrayed. The current joined ownership is a new arrangement for the Louvre and Rijksmuseum, and it remains to be seen whether this experiment in international art purchasing will fit into exhibition plans of both institutions. Unlike many expensive paintings, these two will not be restricted by location and it is expected that they will be on tour regularly. According to Wim Pijbes, director of the Rijksmuseum, the paintings will not be separated, and each museum will own 50 percent of each painting.

Other records

The previous record for a pair of paintings was for two

Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian (Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, nea ...

s, his ''

Diana and Callisto ''Diana and Callisto'' is a painting completed between 1556 and 1559 by the Italian late Renaissance artist Titian. It portrays the moment in which the goddess Diana discovers that her maid Callisto has become pregnant by Jupiter. The paintin ...

'' and ''

Diana and Actaeon The myth of Diana and Actaeon can be found in Ovid’s ''Metamorphoses''. The tale recounts the unfortunate fate of a young hunter named Actaeon, who was a grandson of Cadmus, and his encounter with chaste Artemis, known to the Romans as Diana ...

'', that also hang side by side and are today joinedly owned by the

National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director ...

and the National Galleries of Scotland. The previous record for a painting purchase at the Rijksmuseum was for '' A Mayor of Delft and his Daughter'' by

Jan Steen Jan Havickszoon Steen (c. 1626 – buried 3 February 1679) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, one of the leading genre painters of the 17th century. His works are known for their psychological insight, sense of humour and abundance of colour. Lif ...

, for which they paid 11.9 million euro's in July 2004. The most expensive Rembrandt portrait sold before these is '' Portrait of a Foreign Admiral'', sold at Christie's in December 2009 for £20 million.

Other Rembrandt portraits of women in the 1630s

File:Amalia van Solms.jpg, 1632 File:Rembrandt van Rijn 196.jpg, 1632 File:Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn 162.jpg, 1632 File:Rembrandt, Portret van een jonge vrouw met waaier, 1633, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.jpg, 1633 File:Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn 091.jpg, 1633 File:Portrait of a Young Woman by Rembrandt, 1633.jpg, 1633 File:Rembrandt, Portret van Haesje v.Cleyburg 1634.jpg, 1634 File:Portret van een vrouw, mogelijk Maria Trip Rijksmuseum SK-C-597.jpeg, c.1639