This work by Jan Steen is one of the Rijksmuseum’s most recent acquisitions. It was bought in 2004 from an English lady for almost 12 million euros, the most expensive painting in the history of the museum.The painting was done by Steen around 1655, during his working period in Delft. It has traditionally been called A Burgomaster of... Delft and His Daughter, but gradually some doubts arose about the identity of the figures depicted in it. Two University of Amsterdam professors, Frans Grijzenhout and Niek van Sas, decided to investigate their identity a few years ago.
Their conclusion, based on their examination of clothes, background and historical context, was that the man portrayed was no burgomaster at all, but in fact the Delft merchant Adolf Croeser. The girl is his 13 year old daughter Catharina. At the time the painting was done, they were the only surviving members of the family: the other four children and their mother had already died. Corn merchant Croeser was probably one of the suppliers of Steen’s brewery-cum-inn (Steen was not a fulltime working artist). The brewery was situated on the other side of the canal shown in the painting.
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