This is how you feast with your brothers after you've just signed a peace treaty that ended the 80 years' war with Spain.
Look at the outfits, the drip is incredible.
Some notable things on the painting.
🔸What you see are the men of the Schutterij (the Dutch Civic Guard)
🔸The man on the right holding the silver drinking horn is Captain Cornelis Witsen, the man who commissioned this painting. He would go on to become the burgomaster of Amsterdam four times.
🔸He's shaking hands with his lieutenant, Johan Oetgens van Waveren, also a future burgomaster (think of it like a mayor). Two of the most powerful men in Amsterdam, caught in their moment of maximum relief.
🔸The poem attached to the drum was written by Amsterdam's most celebrated poet, Jan Vos. It declares that their weapons can finally rest.
🔸The painting is enormous, 5.47 by 2.32 metres. Every face is life-size. Every drinking vessel on that table has been identified. Some of those vessels still exist in Amsterdam's collections today.
🔸Bartholomeus van der Helst painted this in 1648. For decades it hung alongside Rembrandt's Night Watch, and contemporaries considered this the greater masterpiece. He was 35 at the time.