Pendant portraits of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit by Eugène Fromentin in 1877 with the remark that they were examples of Rembrandt at his best and were painted in the same period that Rembrandt painted his "Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp", traditionally marking the beginning of his career in Amsterdam. Clearly, the flamboyance of these young newlyweds did more to launch Rembrandt's career as a portrait painter for the Amsterdam upper class than his sober depiction of a class of serious students in Leiden. The entire Van Loon collection was sold to Rothschild for 40,000 pounds, which at the time was over a million francs. Wilhelm von
The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp referenced the painting at the bottom of page 10, where the characters observe the disembowelment of a fish. The 2011 video game "" references the painting in both in-game portraits that can be found on the wall and in a certain cinematic trailer, featuring the main protagonist Adam Jensen as the cadaver as Dr. Nicolaes and his students study his charred and ruined arms, which in the actual story become amputated and replaced with mechanical limbs. The painting is discussed by the narrator (a young man) and his mother during a visit to the Met in "The Goldfinch", a 2013