The Dutch seaman Pieter van den Broecke began his career trading fabrics in West Africa. He eventually took over a company that dominated the Dutch trade in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. In this portrait by Frans Hals, he’s 48 years old and wearing a gold chain that marks his 17 years of service with the Dutch East India Company.

He and the artist were close friends. The merchant seaman actually attended the baptism of Hals’s daughter Susanna.

The result of such rare chemistry between sitter and painter, critics note, is the dazzling portrait you see here.

Hals was the type of painter who worked fast and he liked his subjects to take up most of the canvas. This portrait was painted in 1633, a time when both artist and subject were at the height of their careers. That could have been why Guinness was attracted to it in the first place: a portrait of a successful Protestant, fortysomething merchant—much like himself.