Toward the end of his early Leiden period, Jan Lievens created a series of tronies, or head studies, of older men and women. Even though he based them on the features of live models, these tronies were character studies rather than formal portraits. Looking up to the left, an old man has parted his lips as if he has been interrupted in mid-sentence. The man’s beret may indicate that Lievens meant to depict a scholar or artist. By 1631 tronies by Lievens had already found their way into prominent collections, including that of Frederik Hendrik (1584–1647), Prince of Orange. Constantijn Huygens (1596–1687), quintessential Renaissance man and secretary to the Prince of Orange, thought so highly of Lievens’ ability to render the human face that he urged Lievens to specialize in portraiture.

Daring and innovative as a painter, draughtsman, and printmaker, Lievens created character studies, genre scenes, landscapes, formal portraits, and religious and allegorical images that were widely praised and highly valued during his lifetime. In the 1620s Lievens and his Leiden colleague Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) developed a close, symbiotic relationship that influenced both artists in terms of style and subject matter. They appear as models in each other’s paintings and may have shared a studio. By the early 1630s their manners became so similar that even contemporaries were unsure of the correct attributions of their paintings.