Portrait of Abraham de Potter, silk cloth merchant in Amsterdam, Carel Fabritius, 1649 oil on canvas, h 68.5cm × w 57cm.
At first glance, this is a rather conventional portrait. The man depicted is dressed in moody black and the stiff pleated collar was not exactly fashionable in 1649. But the background is unusual: De Potter stands in front of a weathered plastered wall. Above his signature, Fabritius has painted a nail: so deceptively real that it seems to stick out of the canvas.
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