REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van Rijn
(b. 1606, Leiden, d. 1669, Amsterdam)

The Mennonite Minister Cornelis Claesz. Anslo in Conversation with his Wife, Aaltje (detail)

1641
Oil on canvas
Staatliche Museen, Berlin

In Rembrandt's artful restaging of the domestic drama of marriage, Cornelis seizes the limelight, caught in a rhetorical gesture suitable to his role as leader of and preacher to Amsterdam's Mennonites. Far from forgotten, Aaltje listens into the night with critical attention as her husband expounds upon the Word, which he has found in those sacred books on the Anslo's richly carpeted working table.