Foundation Musick's MonumentFLORIS SOOP LUTE & GAMBA PLAYER
Floris Soop owned a lute and three violas da gamba
Rembrandt painted the fifty year old Floris Soop (1604-1657), a wealthy bachelor and ensign, or standard bearer, in a civic guard company WIJK XIV of his native Amterdam.
Soop lived in a large town house called the Glashuys (Glass House) on Kleveniers Burgh-wal (now 105), next door to Jan Six on Kleveniers Burgh-wal (now 103), whose magnificent portrait was painted by Rembrandt in the same year as the canvas of Floris Soop, 1654.
Like Six, Floris Soop was a regent of the Amsterdam theater, and the cultivated neighbors must have been acquinted for quite some time before Rembrandt painted their portraits.
The first municipal theatre of Amsterdam, inaugurated January 1638.
The Schouwburg opened with Joost van den Vondel’s Gijsbrecht van Aemstel, written especially for the occasion. Floris Soop was a regent of the Schouwburg in 1638.
At his death , Soop owned 140 paintings as well as many books, a lute and three violas da gamba, and about a hundred of fine glassware, coins, and other collectibles.
Two other unattributed portraits of Floris Soop were in the house, on in the voorhuis and one in het musyckcamertje.
