Portrait of Adriaen Paets (1656-1712), bust-length, in a red velvet cloak

Adriaen van der Werff’s early career as an independent painter is closely connected with two Rotterdam connoisseurs and their art collections, one of whom was Nicholas Flinck, the other Paets himself. As an executive officer in the Rotterdam Admiralty and, from 1703 onwards, a director of the Dutch East India Company, Paets was one of the most influential people in the city, whom Werff was lucky to count as not only patron but friend. As well as supporting contemporary artists, Paets had inherited a highly important art collection from his father, including Johannes Vemeer’s The Astronomer, now in the Louvre, Paris. The posthumous sale of his works, held in Amsterdam, 27 April 1713, evidenced the family’s regard for Venetian painters of the High Renaissance, including works by Titian, Veronese, Bordone and Palma il Vecchio. This is the first time that the present portrait has appeared at auction, having been in the family of the sitter since its execution in 1705. The painting has long been assumed lost, though the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, holds a copy by Pieter van der Werff that hung in the offices of the East India Company, Rotterdam, for which this is the prototype.