Adolf and Catharina Croeser, Known as ‘The Burgomaster of Delft and his Daughter’

Legs wide apart and his right arm akimbo, Croeser sits on the stoop of his house on the Oude Delft canal in Delft. His thirteen-year-old daughter Catharina looks straight out at us. Jan Steen included a narrative element in this portrait: a poor woman and child beg for alms from the wealthy grain merchant. In 1657, just two years after this portrait was made, Croeser stood surety for Steen, who wa…