Pendant Portraits of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit

Rembrandt van Rijn painted these full-length wedding portraits in 1634 to commemorate the marriage of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit, two members of Amsterdam's wealthy merchant class. Each canvas measures over two meters tall, presenting the couple in lavish black silk with detailed lace collars and cuffs befitting their status during the Dutch Golden Age.

These are Rembrandt's only known full-length pendant portraits, a format typically reserved for European royalty and Flemish nobility. The young couple's choice to commission such grand paintings reflects their ambitions during an era of unprecedented Dutch prosperity. Rembrandt was just 28 years old, already establishing himself as Amsterdam's most sought-after portrait painter.

The portraits remained together in family hands for over two centuries before entering the Rothschild collection in 1877. In 2015, France and the Netherlands made history with a joint acquisition for 160 million euros, each country contributing half. Today the paintings alternate between the Louvre and Rijksmuseum under an agreement that they can never be separated.