Portrait of a Boy, Aged Six

This six-year-old’s appearance is anything but childlike. He wears a grown man’s clothing and looks out at us with a solemn gaze. But above all it is the fact that he is looking down at us from above that makes him seem older than his years. This lends him a heroic air rather at odds with his youth.

The boy’s identity is unknown. His parents probably came from Haarlem, like the painter Jan de Bray. Jan de Bray belonged to a famous family of Haarlem painters and lived and worked in his home town for most of his life.