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Potter worked for the court in The Hague, in nearby Delft, and in 1652 he settled in Amsterdam. According to Houbraken Nicolaes Tulp persuaded him to move to the metropolis where the famous doctor became his mentor. If true, once again Tulp showed he had an eye for young talent. Two decades earlier he had asked the twenty-six-year-old Rembrandt to paint the Anatomy Lesson which established Rembrandt's reputation in the city. In 1653 Potter painted a life-size equestrian portrait which has been traditionally identified as his likeness of Tulp's son Dirck (Diederik); however, the tradition may very well be apocryphal. The portrait proves that Potter was no exception to the rule that seventeenth-century Dutch painters never match the life-size equestrian portraits of royalty and their ministers by Velázquez, Rubens, or Van Dyck. (Rembrandt is not an exception to the rule either.)
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