The Jewish bride by Rembrandt

An elegantly dressed man and woman are in a vague, dark room. The man has lovingly placed his arm around the woman's shoulder and a hand on her breast. Very carefully she touches his hand with her fingertips. Both are staring straight ahead, they seem deep in thought. A few objects can be recognised in the obscure background: beside the woman is a plant in a pot and behind her an architectural fragment. The picture, called the 'Jewish Bride', was painted by Rembrandt in 1667. It is one of the most famous and mysterious paintings in the museum's collection.

Jewish bride?

The painting became known as the 'Jewish Bride' in the early nineteenth century after the Amsterdam art collector, Van der Hoop, identified the subject of the painting as a Jewish father hanging a necklace around his daughter's neck on her wedding day.
Today, no one sees this man has the woman's father anymore. It is clearly a couple, although who they are is not clear. The faces appear to be portraits, but the clothes are unusual for the time. Perhaps they were contemporaries of Rembrandt's who posed as characters from the Bible.