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
Nicolaes Tulp an enormous amount of herbs and spices from the East, thanks to the new shipping routes. It became a successful trade and in 1636 there were 66 apothecaries in Amsterdam. Shocked at the exorbitant prices asked for useless anti-plague medicines (Amsterdam was severely hit by the plague in 1635), Dr Tulp decided to do something about it. He gathered his doctor and chemist friends together and they wrote the first pharmacopoeia of Amsterdam in 1636 the "Pharmacopoea Amstelredamensis". The Apothecary guild would require an exam based on Dr Tulp's book in order for new chemists to set up shop in