Part of family history

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the painting of coats of arms on old family portraits was commonplace in order to make clear which ancestor was represented and emphasise that the owner came from respectable families. It is not known for certain when the arms of Jacob and Aletta were added but archival research has shown that it was probably sometime between 1776 and 1811. At the time, the portraits belonged to the Sypesteyn family, descendents of the Olycans. They also had other Olycan family portraits by Frans Hals in their collection, all of which were also given their coats of arms during that period.