Burgomaster Jan van Duren (1613–1687)

Burgomaster Jan van Duren by Gerard ter Borch, painted around 1666, depicts a civic official from the Dutch Republic. Ter Borch's portraits of municipal leaders document the governing class that administered the Dutch Golden Age's complex system of urban self-government. Ter Borch's extraordinary ability to render silk, satin, and velvet with a tactile reality unsurpassed in Dutch Golden Age painting made him the supreme painter of the Dutch upper middle class, his small elegant panels providing the definitive image of prosperous seventeenth-century society.

The civic portrait presents the burgomaster with the dignity appropriate to his office. Ter Borch's precise rendering of the official costume and his psychological sensitivity to the sitter's character create a portrait that conveys both public authority and private personality.