Lot 1568 Dα

In this painting, Nicolaes Maes depicts Francisco Lopes Suasso, one of the leading bankers of the Dutch Golden Age. Suasso came from a Portuguese-Jewish banking family that was expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in the course of the Inquisition. Francisco's date of birth is uncertain and is likely to have been between 1657 and 1660. The family maintained close relations with Spain from Amsterdam and The Hague. In 1676, Antonio was raised to hereditary nobility by the Spanish King Charles II and was able to acquire the barony of Avernas le Gras in Brabant. Of particular historical significance was the loan of two million guilders granted by Francisco Lopes Suasso to the governor of the Netherlands William III of Orange. With this, William financed his invasion of England in 1688, which led to the Glorious Revolution and elevated him to the English royal throne together with his wife Maria (for more on the Lopes Suasso family see Daniël Swetschinski and Loeki Schönduve: De Familie Lopes Suasso financiers van Willem III, Zolle 1988 as well as Tirtsah Levie Bernfeld: Matters Matter. Material Culture of Dutch Sephardim (1600-1750), in: Mapping Jewish Amsterdam. The Early Modern Perspective (=Studia Rosenthaliana 44), Leuven, Paris and Walpole 2012, pp. 191-216). The painting is presented in a contemporary, probably southern European frame with a surrounding carved festoon.
In the RKD (Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie), The Hague, the painting was so far registered under no. 123981 as an autograph work by Nicolaes Maes. Recently, however, a French painter, Pierre Mignard or Ferdinand Voet have been considered in addition to Nicolaes Maes.