Jacob Willemsz van Veen (1456–1535), the Artist’s Father

An elderly man with a weathered, honest face holds a small book, his hands folded in patient stillness. Maarten van Heemskerck painted this portrait of his own father in 1532, at the start of a career that would make him the most influential Netherlandish painter of his generation. The direct, unsparing likeness — the lined forehead, the tired eyes, the simple clothing — is a son’s tribute to a long life, rendered with the new realism of the Renaissance.