Study for a Portrait of a Portrait of a Delft Alderman

Vekolje was one of the important painters active in Delft in the late 17th century. He specialized mainly in portraits but was also a prolific creator of mezzotint prints. The Met has several of his mezzotints in the collection.This drawing is either a study for or a ricordo of Jan Verkolje's painting Portrait of a Delft Alderman (said to be "De Wit") Preparing for a Journey, 1677, in a Dutch private collection.The drawing differs from the painting in several ways; the hair of the sitter and of the servant in the background are longer than in the painting and the rifle behind the table and the stirrups in the foreground of the painting do not appear in the drawing. This freely drawn compositional study could have been created to show to the patron or it may have been created as a later memory of the composition.