Dirck Jacobsz.: Group portrait of a squad of the Caliver Guild (1532)

(Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia)

A painting by the Dutch artist Dirck Jacobsz. (1496 - 1567). This piece is part of a whole set of squads of the Caliver Guild of Amsterdam in the period 1529-1535 during which 9 of its 12 squads commissioned group portraits (only 4 of these have survived) - the money for these portraits was paid by the each individual member. Which squad of the Caliver Guild is depicted is unknown but it is a compete squad of 17 men, each man clad in the red/ blue uniform of the guild with its insignia of the left shoulder. Traditional with these portraits of civic guards is that several members of the squad are pointing toward the captain and the lieutenant of the squad, in this case these are the third and fourth men in the bottom row (the website of the hermitage incorrectly identifies the man in armor as the captain). Painting from 1532.