Group Portraits

All adult men were expected to join such a militia until the age of 60, as long as they were able to buy their own armour. The group portraits were a costly exercise as each member was required to pay for their own portrait. The style of the earliest militia group portraits, painted in the 16th century, was rather static. Over the course of the 17th century, artists developed an increasingly loose compositional style that reached its pinnacle with Rembrandt’s The Night Watch and the lively Banquet of the Amsterdam Civic Guard by Bartholomeus van der Helst. Aside from militias, other municipal, provincial and national organisations, as well as individuals, commissioned group portraits.