2025 99.90g France Silver France Silver Marten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit Portrait PP

In 2025, Monnaie de Paris represents two inseparable portraits by Rembrandt, jointly acquired in 2016 by the Louvre Museum and the Rijksmuseum, an opportunity to bring them together on a single frame in honour of their return to the galleries of the Parisian museum for the next five years.

Painted in 1634, these two life-size portraits are among the great artworks of Rembrandt, one of the masters of Dutch painting. They bear witness to the union of Marten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit. The two figures are in dialogue: the young man, sure of himself and his place in the social edifice, welcomes his wife, the heiress of one of the wealthy families of the economic capital of the United Provinces, at the same time as he points her out.

They are the only known life-size portraits painted by Rembrandt, a style then reserved for the highest European nobility; they probably reflect the couple's desire to assert their social status. Although painted individually, the portraits were lucky to have never been seperated since the 17th century. Under the agreement between France and the Netherlands, they must always be exhibited together.