Earliest Tattoo in Western European Painting?
December 10 2025
Picture: Amsterdam Museum via CODART
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Interesting news from CODART at the end of last month that the condition report of a painting attributed to Wallerant Vaillant in the Amsterdam Museum may have led to the discovery of 'the earliest known depiction of a tattoo in Western European painting'.
According to the article:
During an inspection of a seventeenth-century painting in the Amsterdam Museum collection, a tattoo was discovered on the wrist of a prominent Amsterdam merchant. The painting, a 1674 portrait of the College of the Chief Commissioners of the Wharves attributed to Wallerant Vaillant (1623–1677), was undergoing a routine condition check when restorer Liesbeth Abraham noticed the mark on the inside of one subject’s wrist.
Click on the link above to read the full story.
