Portrait of Pieter de Graeff

Ter Borch's 1647 portrait of Pieter de Graeff was painted at the height of his early international career, only a year before he returned to the Netherlands after years of travel in Spain, England, and Germany. De Graeff was a powerful Amsterdam regent, connected to the patrician family that would dominate Amsterdam politics throughout the Golden Age. The commission testifies to ter Borch's access to the highest levels of Dutch society by the late 1640s. The portrait is a document of both the sitter's status and the painter's growing reputation as the most refined portraitist of his generation.

The large-scale figure is shown in full civic dress, every detail of his costume — the broad white collar, the dark silk — rendered with ter Borch's signature precision. The composition is austere, the background plain, directing all attention to the sitter's dignified bearing.