The Man with the Golden Helmet
"Geelhoed"

"Geelhoed"="The Man With The Golden Helmet", here seen in stained glass takeoff of the Rembrandt van Rijn original. This is a "window" on my heritage, with a regular reappearance along the way in my travels. I have had a print copy of the painting in my office ever since the original painting set all records for the highest price ever paid for a painting at Sotheby's in London, to be questioned later as quite possibly "school of Rembrandt." It is to be hoped in my case at least, that "it is a poor pupil who does not surpass the master" and the painting is magnificent in its hauntingly evocative pose of my dour ancestor.

Having noticed the painting in my office on several occasions, a colleague from Pracon had arranged a series of lectures for me and had suggested that the honorarium for my services might be more appropriate if forthcoming from the creative artists at Pracon, so now "El Hombre con Casque de Oro" resides over my desk in backlit stained glass next to the Rembrandt copy. In subsequent travels, I have encountered the original, a copy in the most remote jungle outposts of then-Zaire, in my room in the Bronte Hotel in Harare, Zimbabwe, and in each of my son's homes--and quite a few unrelated venues, each of them coincidences!