Jan de Bray almost certainly painted this compelling double portrait in May 1664 as a posthumous tribute to his parents, shortly after they had succumbed to the plague in Haarlem. This stark double-profile image has a timeless quality that is enhanced by the parents' simple black dress and austere surroundings. Jan represented Salomon (1597–1664) with his left hand outstretched as though he were about to speak, a rhetorical pose that identifies him as a man who excelled at intellectual pursuits. His skullcap, dark mantle, and simple white collar—all common scholarly attire—reinforce this association. De Bray stipulated in his will that the painting should be given to the city of Haarlem in order to preserve the memory of his parents as respected citizens of the city, a stipulation, however, that was never carried out.
The profile portrait was a common format on Roman coins, cameos, and celebratory medals depicting individuals of high birth and rank. The tradition of portraying famous men and women in this manner was revived in the Renaissance and continued in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century, specifically in representations of the Prince and Princess of Orange. De Bray's use of overlapping profile portraits, however, is found only rarely in seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish painting; an important precedent, Agrippina and Germanicus, by Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), is also in the National Gallery of Art’s collection. De Bray, who may have been familiar with that work, chose a similar pose to imbue this image of his parents with classical ideals of dignity and permanence.
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