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- Bartolomeus van der Helst (1613 - 1670)
- Jochem van Aras with his Wife and Daughter
- Netherlands
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- Date: 1654
- Object Type: Painting
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Image size: 169.5 x 197.2 cm
- Object size: 210 x 235 x 16 cm
- Inv: P110
- Location: East Drawing Room
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- Description
- Provenance
- Marks/Inscriptions
- Further Reading
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- In this lively family portrait, signed and dated 1654, Bartholomeus van der Helst painted Jochem van Aras, a well-to-do baker and merchant from Amsterdam, with his wife Elisabeth Claes Loenen and their only surviving daughter, Maria van Aras. The painting celebrates the family's wealth in their fine clothes, while a glimpse of what is probably their country estate (near Haarlem) is visible in the landscape on the right.
The hare the woman proudly displays not only celebrates her husband’s hunting prowess, but is a reference to the extension of the right to hunt, until recently the exclusive privilege of the aristocracy, to the wealthy middle classes. Painted during the period when Van der Helst’s reputation as a portrait painter eclipsed that of Rembrandt, the picture exhibits the well modelled figures, careful attention to character and costume, and smooth finish which made him popular with the prosperous elite in Amsterdam and surrounding towns. The dogs and fruit were probably painted by teh still life painter Jan Baptist Weenix.
The painting was acquired by the 4th Marquess of Hertford in 1862.
- In this lively family portrait, signed and dated 1654, Bartholomeus van der Helst painted Jochem van Aras, a well-to-do baker and merchant from Amsterdam, with his wife Elisabeth Claes Loenen and their only surviving daughter, Maria van Aras. The painting celebrates the family's wealth in their fine clothes, while a glimpse of what is probably their country estate (near Haarlem) is visible in the landscape on the right.