The portrait, that will be a centrepiece in the Boerhaave collection, depicts a man and a woman who are obviously engaged in some sort of scientific undertaking that is demonstrated by the scientific instruments and books. It were these attributes, beside the high quality of the painting, that attracted the attention of Bazuin & de Blécourt when we first came across it at a German auction house. Next to the instruments the presence of a lady puzzled us. Although portraits of scientists are not completely uncommon in the 17th century, the presence of the woman is rare if not unique.

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Initial research
The initial research we executed confirmed our enthusiasm for the painting. Focussing on the instruments, the map and the drawings we found a lead to the mathematics professor Franciscus van Schooten (1581 – 1645). Although not completely undisputed it is assumed that Van Schooten drew a map of the small Dutch town Grol -or Groenlo as it is named today- and it was the most accurate map to date in the first quarter of the 17th century. It is this map that we see being held by the gentleman in the painting.* However, this presented us with a problem. Judging by the clothes that are worn by the man and woman and the general composition we felt that the painting should be dated after 1650 and probably before 1660.** As there are no indications whatsoever in the painting that we are looking at a posthumous portrait it could therefore not be Franciscus van Schooten who died in 1645. This made us turn to Van Schooten's sons Frans van Schooten jr (1615 – 1660) and Pieter van Schooten (1634 -1679) who both followed their father's footsteps in mathematics and survey. Both Frans and his half-brother Pieter were highly esteemed scholars. Frans being the mathematics teacher of Chistiaan Huygens and editor of a book by Descartes more so than Pieter, but both were authors of a number of publications on mathematics.

Cooperation
It was here that we decided to contact the Museum Boerhaave to assist us with the determination of the instruments that are depicted on the painting. The museum responded with some excitement. Not only did they have a number of similar instruments as seen in the double-portrait in their collection, the painting would add tremendously to the museum's collection that focuses on visualising the history of science and its story. As the day of the auction approached rapidly we decided that we needed to cooperate and try to acquire the painting for the museum. Obviously this cooperation turned out to be successful.

Bazuin & de Blécourt were not only instrumental in the discovery of the painting but also in the acquisition for Museum Boerhaave, thus assisting to provide a place for the portrait as part of the Dutch national heritage.

Follow-up
As yet we have no prove of the identity of the sitters in the double-portrait, neither do we know the name of the artist who painted the portrait. Interestingly enough Franciscus brother Joris van Schooten (ca 1587-1652/1653) was a portraitist himself and witness to the wedding of his nephew Frans in 1652. The family was thus well acquainted with both science and art. Research into the painting is ongoing and we expect a full article on this fascinating double-portrait in the near future.

Dutch newspapers on this acquisition:
 dubbeltrouw_artikel.pdf 
 dubbelleids_dagblad.pdf

*   Expertise of J. van der Pluim. Author of De vestingstad Grol in de kaart gekeken, Groenlo 2006.
** We thank Jacoba de Jonge (Amersfoort) helping us to narrow down the dating of the clothing.