Margarita Trip as Minerva, Instructing Her Sister Anna Maria Trip 1663

Ferdinand Bol painted Margarita Trip as Minerva, Instructing Her Sister Anna Maria Trip, in the Dutch Republic sometime in the mid-17th century. This artwork shows the importance of family and the social status that came with it in Dutch society. The Trip family was a wealthy and influential merchant family, and this painting was commissioned to celebrate their social standing, but also to demonstrate their intelligence and learning. Margarita is depicted as Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom, and is instructing her younger sister, Anna Maria, in the arts. The painting is full of symbolism, intended to demonstrate the Trip family's place in Dutch society. As historians, to fully understand the importance of family portraits such as these, we might examine Dutch family archives to learn more about the Trip family and their place in the cultural and economic life of Amsterdam.