Portrait of a gentleman, three-quarter-length, holding a quill; and Portrait of a Lady, three-quarter-length, holding her girdle

The identity of the sitters in this pair of portraits is unknown, though we can presume that those represented are a gentleman and his wife. Both paintings are signed by the German-born portraitist Bartholomäus Sarburgh, who is recorded as working in Berne, Switzerland, in around 1620-23. After nine years spent travelling around Europe, Sarburgh settled in The Hague in 1632, just two years after these two portraits were painted.

The pictures were formerly owned by the connoisseur and collector Dr Bob Jones, Jr., who served as second president of Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, an establishment founded by his evangelist father. Much of his collection is now housed in the Museum & Art Gallery located on the university campus, widely considered one of the finest collections of European old masters in America: the museum boasts works by celebrated Renaissance and Baroque painters such as Lucas Cranach the Elder, Sandro Botticelli, Peter Paul Rubens, Guido Reni and Anthony van Dyck.