3-016-046 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Jan Lutma, goldsmith, 1656. Although Jan Lutma (c. 1584-1669) was already an elderly man when he was portrayed, he was probably still working as a silversmith. Yet despite the presence of a hammer and a pot containing punches, he is not working here but posing. He holds one of his creations - an object with a turned stem, possibly a candlestick - in his right hand, and beside him on the table is a chased silver drinking bowl. Lutma was born in Emden in East Friesland. After spending five years in Paris, he settled in Amsterdam in 1621, where he built up a reputation as a master silversmith and received a series of official commissions. As he grew older he began to experience problems with his eyes. Yet in 1656 he declared that he had been cured of his blindness. The fact that he is portrayed here in that year with an absent look and half-closed eyes undoubtedly has to do with this disability.