The man is dressed in a Japanese gown made of blue silk woven with a goldthread pattern. Beside him, on the table, lies a blue velvet tablecloth. The woman is wearing a terracotta-coloured robe draped with terracotta silk shot with blue. Beside her lies a red velvet cloth. Both portraits have their own colour schemes, yet also manage to complement each other.
The cultivated garden in the background reinforces the suggestion that these are wealthy people. At the same time, the grounds also serve a symbolic function. It suggests a garden of love: a highly suitable backdrop for a pair of portraits showing a married couple.
The portraits are painted on a copper base. This expensive material was rarely used for paintings, precisely because it was so costly. Yet it was by far the best material to paint on, and it gave Verkolje's delicately painted works an even, luxurious finish. Moreover, it imbued the reds, blues and terracotta hues that typify his works with their characteristic profound depth. Another quality of the metal is that the paint rarely cracks, which makes paintings on copper particularly popular among collectors to this day.
With their wonderful rendering of materials, unique facial expressions and elegant poses, these portraits of a husband and wife are superb examples of the elegant art that became fashionable at the end of the eighteenth century. They show that Jan Verkolje was not considered one of the leading portrait artists in his day without excellent reason.
Verkolje painted these Portraits of a Husband and Wife in the year in which he died, 1693. He signed and dated both works, so that these represent - as far as is known - the last dated portraits he ever made.