''The Sampling Officials'' (), also called ''Syndics of the Drapers’ Guild'' (), is a 1662

oil painting Oil painting is a painting method involving the procedure of painting with pigments combined with a drying oil as the Binder (material), binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on canvas, wood panel, or oil on coppe ...

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (; ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), mononymously known as Rembrandt was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and Drawing, draughtsman. He is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in ...

. It is now in the

Rijksmuseum The Rijksmuseum () is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history and is located in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough of Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the S ...

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

. It has been described as his "last great collective portrait". The painting is a group portrait of five gentlemen from the Amsterdam cloth guild who were responsible for inspecting the cloth, along with their servant. They were not the regents of the guild but the wardens: two Catholics, a Mennonite, a Remonstrant, and a Reformed Protestant. Their one-year terms in office began on

Good Friday Good Friday, also known as Holy Friday, Great Friday, Great and Holy Friday, or Friday of the Passion of the Lord, is a solemn Christian holy day commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus and his death at Calvary (Golgotha). It is observed during ...

and they were expected to conduct their inspections thrice weekly. It was an unpaid honorary position. To compare the quality of different batches of cloth, they used 'samples,' test pieces of fabric—hence their name, "staalmeesters" (masters of samples in Dutch). There were four grades of quality, the highest was indicated by pressing four seals and the lowest by pressing only one. The inspectors used pliers to press the seals of their city (front) and guild (reverse) into penny-sized slugs of lead that were specially affixed to record the results of the inspection. They met three times a week. The aforementioned "staalmeesters" performed their duties from Good Friday 1661 to Good Friday 1662. Van Doeyenburg acted as the chairman of the group. The open book likely concerns the guild's accounting records. For a long time, it was thought that the man on the far right of the painting was holding a bag of stamps. During the restoration in 1991, it turned out to be a pair of gloves.Ageeth Scherphuis, ''Tegenover een schilderij moet je je bescheiden gedragen'', in: ''Vrij Nederland'', 7 december 1991, p. 50 The men, who are appraising a length of Persian-style fabric against exemplars from a swatch book, are (from left to right): *Jacob van Loon (1595–1674) *Volckert Jansz (1605 or 1610–1681) *Willem van Doeyenburg ( 1616–1687) *Frans Hendricksz Bel (1629–1701) *Aernout van der Mye ( 1625–1681) *Jochem de Neve (1629–1681) The guild commissioned this portrait and it hung in their

guildhall A guildhall, also known as a guild hall or guild house, is a historical building originally used for tax collecting by municipalities or merchants in Europe, with many surviving today in Great Britain and the Low Countries. These buildings commo ...

, the ''Staalhof'' ( nl), until 1771. The painting is used on the packaging of

Dutch Masters Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history roughly spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) for Dutch independence. The new Dutch Republi ...

cigars. The painting is also seen on the wall in

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...

' house in the opening sequence of ''

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''. The painting has a prominent part in

Jeffrey Archer Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare (born 15 April 1940) is an English novelist and former politician. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Louth (Lincolnshire) from 1969 to 1974, but did not seek re-election after a fina ...

's 2019 book "Nothing Ventured". It is used on the cover of the book titled 'The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea' by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge. The painting plays an important role in

Zadie Smith Zadie Smith (born Sadie; 25 October 1975) is an English novelist, essayist, and short-story writer. Her debut novel, ''White Teeth'' (2000), immediately became a best-seller and won a number of awards. She became a tenured professor in the ...

's book ''

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'', in which one of the main characters, Howard Belsey, is a Rembrandt scholar.

Composition and Style

Rembrandt likely considered the placement of the painting on the wall, as he chose a perspective with a fairly low vantage point, allowing the viewer to look up at the table from below. This angle magnifies the stature of the "staalmeesters" (cloth inspectors) enhancing their sense of importance. He also likely adjusted the lighting in the painting to match the actual lighting of the location where the painting was originally intended to hang. The paneling in the background of the painting likely matched the original interior design of the room in the Staalhof. The work was probably hung quite high in the room, above a mantelpiece, so the upward perspective had a practical function: it matched the viewer's line of sight in the room. This perspective makes the tabletop invisible, showing only the view of a heavy, rich tablecloth. This technique allowed Rembrandt to position the figures almost in a straight line: five dark shapes, their white collars, and the serious, frontal gazes of the "staalmeesters," fully aware of the importance of their role. This arrangement presents the viewer with a row of five distinguished, intense faces, aligned almost horizontally but with a slight oscillation like lanterns.Wieseman, Marjorie E. (2014) ''Artistieke conventies'', in: Bikker, Jonathan & Weber, Gregor J.M. ''Late Rembrandt'', p. 124 + 129

References

External links

*
The Sampling Officials
' at the

Rijksmuseum Amsterdam The Rijksmuseum () is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history and is located in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museumplein, Museum Square in the stadsdeel, borough of Amsterdam-Zuid, Amsterdam South, ...

Jacob van Loon biography
(in Dutch)
Volckert Jansz biography
(in Dutch)
Willem van Doeyenburg biography
(in Dutch)
Frans Hendricksz Bel biography
(in Dutch)
Aernout van der Mye biography
(in Dutch)
Jochem de Neve biography
(in Dutch)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sampling Officials, The Paintings in the Rijksmuseum Portraits by Rembrandt History of the textile industry 1662 paintings

Composition and Style

See also

References

External links