The Portrait of Abraham de Potter, Amsterdam Silk Merchant

A prosperous silk merchant is shown half-length against a dark wall, his face lit from the left and one hand resting at his chest in a pose of quiet assurance. Carel Fabritius, Rembrandt’s most gifted pupil and the painter of the famous Goldfinch, made this portrait in 1649, and it survives among the very few works that have come down from his tragically brief career. The firmly modelled head, the quiet palette and the restrained intensity of presence show the independence that led scholars to see in Fabritius one of the most original voices of the Dutch school.