Portrait of a military commander, three-quarter-length, in armour, under a portico by a table with a black servant, holding a medallion, a river-fort beyond; and Portrait of a lady, three-quarter-length, in a black dress and pearls, under a portico, a tro

The present pictures are the only known portraits by Daniel Vertangen. Apart from a brief trip to Copenhagen in 1658 and possibly to Hamburg, he is not known to have left his native Netherlands.

It can be assumed that the sitters are associated with the fort depicted in the landscape behind the man. Similar forts on the River Rio Grande were depicted in a series of drawings by Frans Post on his visits to Brazil (see J. de Sousa-Leão, Frans Post, Amsterdam, 1972, pp. 153-6). It has also been suggested that the sitters may have had some connection with the Dutch East Indies.