Cornelis Ketel: Portrait of Adam Wachendorff (1574)

(Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

A painting by the Dutch artist Cornelis Ketel (1548-1616). The man on this painting is Adam Wachendorff, the secretary of the Steelyard. The steelyard was the main trading base of the Hanseatic League in London. It was a walled community with its own warehouses, guildhalls, cloth halls, wine cellars, kitchens, residential quarters etc. The Hanseatic League itself was a commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and cities in Northwestern and Central Europe. The painting itself also mentions the age of Adam at the time of this portrait: 35 years. Painting from 1574.