This December, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), is offering visitors the opportunity to watch conservators treat a large seventeenth-century group portrait by Nicolaes Eliasz. Pickenoy (1588-1653). Acquired by the MFA in 2025, The Founders of the Amsterdam Wine Merchants Guild (1625) is one of the few Dutch group portraits owned by a museum outside the Netherlands.
The picture celebrates the founding members of a wine guild—some of the most prosperous businessmen in Amsterdam at the time, who were responsible for overseeing the quality of wine imported from France and Germany. Paintings recording the leaders of a commercial, charitable, or military association are one of the great contributions of Dutch culture in the seventeenth century. The format challenged artists to capture individual likenesses while also conveying harmony within the organization. Nearly all such pictures belong to museums in the Netherlands, and they hardly ever come on the market. The MFA’s new acquisition is one of two Dutch group portraits in North America that represents members of an institution rather than a family.
Beginning 9 December, the painting will be on public display for about a year in a pop-up conservation studio in the MFA’s Center for Netherlandish Art’s Innovation Gallery. During this time, visitors will be able to view the transformation of the painting as it undergoes a full conservation treatment. The process will begin with the removal of surface grime and layers of discolored varnish and overpaint. After this, a clear isolating varnish will be applied to saturate the paint layers, and any areas of old loss and damage will be repaired. The next stage of treatment will involve careful retouching of any areas of loss, rendering them invisible and allowing the viewer to experience the portrait as the artist originally intended. Lastly a thin and protective varnish layer will be applied to make final adjustments to the painting’s overall appearance and surface gloss.
Pickenoy dominated the portrait market in Amsterdam in the 1620s, depicting the city’s ruling elite with impressive detail. Even after Rembrandt’s arrival in Amsterdam in 1631, he continued to receive important portrait commissions.
The MFA’s collection includes five portraits by Rembrandt, created in the years from 1632 to 1634. The acquisition of two paintings by Pickenoy—the group portrait as well as an individual portrait of the wine guild’s chairman also on view in the gallery—expands the Museum’s holdings of Dutch portraiture and provides greater context for Rembrandt’s innovations in the next decade. Additionally, Pickenoy’s works enable the MFA to tell a more expansive story of early modern capitalism, as such portraits reflect the nation’s prosperity based on international commerce, as well as illustrate the growing power of merchants as art patrons.