Portrait of a Man with Documents

In 1636 Van der Helst was living in Amsterdam, where he became the city’s most successful portraitist from the 1640s due to the patronage of Amsterdam’s wealthiest families. One of his first compositions following his move to that city was the painting of the Regents of the Walloon Orphanage, executed one year after the artist’s marriage to Anna du Pire. While his first works reveal the influence …