An elderly couple placing a wax seal on a letter

After training in his native Denmark, Bernhard Keil moved to Amsterdam in 1642 where he entered Rembrandt’s studio. Keil remained there until 1651 when he left for Italy, eventually settling in Rome after periods spent in Bergamo and Venice. As Minna Heimbürger observed at the time of the 1999 sale, this work constitutes a rare example of a signed and dated work by Keil, confirming that the loose handling and rapid brushstrokes are a hallmark of the artist's late style. The composition, which recalls Rembrandt's celebrated 'The Shipbuilder and his Wife': Jan Rijcksen and his wife, Griet Jans (1633; London, Royal Collection), shows an old man and woman placing a wax seal on a letter, a subject the artist had treated in earlier works, notably for the picture described as an Allegory of Fire in the Uffizi, Florence (see M. Heimbürger, Bernardo Keilhau, detto Monsù Bernardo, Rome, 1988, p. 161, no. 27).