Jan Uytenbogaert, “The Gold Weigher”

This engraving -known as “The Gold Weigher”- represents the collector Jan Uytenbogaert (1608-1680), a friend of Rembrandt Since his stay at the University of Leiden, fond of collecting engravings and who was appointed in 1632 chief collector of the taxes of Netherlands. It shows a young man luxuriously dressed in a fur coat and wearing a lopsided cap, very much in fashion for the closing years of the 16th century, sitting at a table covered by a rug; he records an entry in an account book while handing a bag of gold coins to a young man kneeling to his left. In front of him is a scale hanging from a wooden shelf anchored to the ceiling. In the foreground, there is a German-style safe and three small barrels to store bags of coins. Such a quantity of anecdotal details recalls the visual repertoire and the graphic tradition of the paintings of collectors, administrators, moneychangers or moneylenders made by Flemish and German painters from the first half of the 16th century.