BARTHOLOMÆUS VAN DER HELST

BARTHOLOMÆUS VAN DER HELST (1613-1670), one of the greatest of the Dutch portrait-painters, born at Haarlem, but spent his life in Amsterdam; he enjoyed a great reputation in his day, and many of his pictures are to be found in European galleries; his "Muster of the Burgher Guard" was considered by Sir Joshua Reynolds to be "the first picture of portraits in the world".