Portrait of a Gentleman 1629 Oil on panel, 68 x 49 cm Private collection
KEYSER, Thomas de
Dutch painter (b. 1596/97, Amsterdam, d. 1667, Amsterdam)
It appears that the chest is filled with bundles of wool, therefore suggesting that the sitter, depicted full length and seated at a table, was associated with the wool trade.
Portrait of a Woman with a Balance 1625-26 Oil on wood, 23 x 17 cm Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
KEYSER, Thomas de
This picture has a pendant, the Portrait of a Man with a Shell, also in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Two other versions of the portrait and its pendant are known. The compositions are reminiscent of Italian Renaissance and Early Netherlandish portraits.
The object of the woman's hand is a balance or scale, of a type usually used for weighing gold and silver coins. As in genre paintings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, such as Jan van Hemessen's Woman Weighing Gold, and Vermeer's Woman Holding a Balance, the balance symbolizes the virtue of temperance.
