This elegant lady and gentleman are portrayed outside on a terrace with gardens beyond. Their poses, gesture and appearance suggest they may be an engaged or newly wed couple. Both are fashionably dressed. The dog was a traditional symbol of fidelity and the man’s gesture implies his heart is pledged to the young woman by his side.
Pieter Nason (Dutch, 1612 - 1688 / 1690)
Nason was a respected portrait and still-life painter, who spent most of his career in The Hague. His portraits of fashionable patrons are similar in style to the smooth highly polished paintings of his Amsterdam contemporary Bartholomeus van der Helst, whose portraits overtook Rembrandt’s in contemporary popularity. Little is known about Nason’s life. He trained with the painter Jan van Ravensteyn and was in Amsterdam in 1638. By the following year he was a member of painters’ guild in The Hague. Nason spent some time working at the Elector’s Court in Berlin around 1666 and then returned to The Hague.
