Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, 'Group Portrait', 1657

This group portrait shows the officers of the Coopers‘ and Wine-rackers’ guild of Amsterdam, which included men who made barrels for the wine imported into the city and those who sampled and bottled it. The name of the guild is written on the seal which hangs over the edge of the table, while in the background is a painting of Saint Matthias, patron saint of coopers, holding an axe. The adze and broad axe carved in the frame were the tools used by coopers to make barrels.

The sitters are named on the document lying on the table: Philips van der Neer, Jan van den Eeckhout, Tomas Hendrick and Jan Hendrick. We don’t know which is which, but Jan van den Eeckhout was the painter’s brother and is probably one of the younger men – he was 37 or 38 years old when this portrait was made.

Group pictures like this – representing the leading figures of trade guilds and military companies, and the trustees or governors of schools, orphanages and hospitals – were very common in seventeenth-century Dutch art. They represented a formal record of those who held office at that moment and would hang on the walls of the guild’s hall or offices. They were usually all male groups, but some women did appear, especially in charitable institutions.

The sitters were the leading figures of their communities, and the challenge for the artist was to make the group seem natural, authoritative and lifelike while also capturing the likenesses of individuals and reflecting any differences in status. However, each man might pay the artist for his own portrait within the group, so by spending more it was possible to make yourself more prominent.

One of the absolute masters of the genre was Rembrandt. The Night Watch and Syndics of the Drapers' Guild (both in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) and The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (The Mauritshuis, The Hague) are all examples of group portraits and are among his greatest paintings. He had an uncanny ability to make such gatherings seem natural and the moment depicted spontaneous. Van den Eeckhout was his friend and pupil and has clearly learnt from Rembrandt. The four men might seem a little disconnected from each other, but the figures are carefully arranged and balanced. The two in front of the table mirror each other’s poses to form a symmetrical frame to the composition. Each has his own preoccupation. One of the men behind the table turns the pages of a book, while the man leaning on the back of his chair holds a quill; both look up to engage the viewer. The other two men seem to be deep in conversation. The man holding the book is a particularly successful figure – he seems the most relaxed, with one foot casually resting on the bar under the table. We don’t know the significance of the dog – it may have belonged to the man on the left.

Van den Eeckhout has also demonstrated his skill as a still-life painter. The seal and its stamp, the paper knife and the ink stand form a neat display in the centre of the picture, and he has depicted the reflections on the different metals with a subtle realism.