Portrait of Oopjen Coppit

Rembrandt van Rijn produced the Pendant Portraits of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit in 1634 and this combined artwork has shared ownership between the Louvre and the Rijksmuseum

The two paintings themselves were wedding portraits completed in oil on canvas, as with almost all of his paintings. Both paintings were 132cm tall and around one metre wide, with a small gap in between the two. Maerten Soolmans himself is displayed on the left hand side with Oopjen Coppit on the right.

It is generally accepted that the two paintings were completed separately but have not been apart since the completion of this pendant commission. The strength of its ownership between the Louvre and Rijksmuseum ensures that it is highly unlikely to come up for sale anytime soon, and thus the two portraits should remain alongside each other for centuries to come.

This stunning double pendant came up for sale in 2015 but its price tag of €160 million meant that in all certainty it would end up in a private collection, perhaps in Russia or the Middle East. Thankfully, some high profile discussions between the major art institutions of Paris and Amsterdam would reach an agreement to purchase this piece together. Such items should always be held, ideally, within public galleries and museums to ensure that the beauty of the artwork can be appreciated and understood by as many people as possible.

Oopjen Coppit would sadly lose her husband Maerten but later re-married to Captain Maerten Pietersz Daij. This would cause difficulties in accurately identifying the two figures in this pendant portrait but recently it has been proven that she is with her first husband in this Rembrandt double portrait. After her death the pendants would remain in his family's collection and the assumption was made that it was him in the left-hand portrait.