In 1642, Captain Banning Cocq, commander of the arquebusiers, and each of his men paid 100 guilders to commission Rembrandt to paint a group portrait. By then, the civic militia no longer had wars to fight and had become a social club for wealthy citizens. They were keen to hire painters to paint their portraits, using them to display their martial prowess, and these neatly dressed, smartly attired young men were also quite popular with the townspeople. Captain Banning Cocq had seen the portrait Rembrandt painted of Reverend Anslo and his wife. He liked that style of painting, and the militiamen shared much the same taste. They wanted Rembrandt to paint a group portrait for them.
Under normal requirements, this type of commissioned painting had to arrange its subjects according to rank. But Rembrandt did not paint this work according to his patrons' demands, because that would have made the composition extremely stiff. In the finished work, the figures were arranged naturally, each with a different pose and expression, while the light was rendered differently throughout the canvas. Its composition employed an approach close to theatrical staging, allowing every figure to appear in the picture while arranging them in a lively, layered fashion. Its contrasts of light and darkness were intense, its levels rich, and it was full of drama.
But the buyers were dissatisfied. They had each paid 100 guilders, only to have half their faces show? Since they had paid the same amount but were not given equal prominence in the painting, the militiamen protested to the artist, and payment for the painting was refused. To recover the commission, the guild took the matter to court.
Rembrandt had used his wife as a model in many highly controversial religious and historical paintings. He was fiercely attacked in court,