According to biographer Arnold Houbraken, Johannes, or Jan, Visscher was an able etcher who made famous prints in his lifetime after Philips Wouwerman, Nicolaes Berchem, Adriaen van Ostade, and Jan van Goyen.

This posthumous portrait shows Peter Proelius, minister of the gospel at Amsterdam, half-length, directed to the left, head slightly turned to face the viewer, wearing a skull cap, flat white collar and black cloak, his right hand against his chest; a column and a curtain in right background.

The author of the verse is Jacobus Heiblocq (1623–1690), Rector in Amsterdam. The first Latin part can be loosely translated as follows:

He has already hidden long enough in the darkness to which grace granted light from God's mercy. | Only recently, when his voice rang out from the pulpits of Amsterdam, his dignified appearance could be seen with these features. | Now it is rotting in the earth and yet it is visible in heaven, in copperplate engraving and in his own: simply hidden and three times visible. | These tears flow to you and your likeness, oh friend, and sigh, alas, and pious thoughts we have dedicated to your death.

And the Dutch verses:

’t Is lang genoech in ’t graf, en achter ’t kleed geschuilt,

Dat nu al ruim een jaar zijn aangezicht bedekte,

Waarom zoo meenig oog zoo bitter heeft gehuilt,

Hy heeft voor ’t sterffelijk het eeuwige geruilt,

Die VOORZON die aan ’t Y een lichte star verstrekte,

Waar toe hem d’ Heemelvoocht zoo gunstelijk verwekte

(He has been hidden long enough in the grave and behind the cloth that has now covered his face for more than a year, which is why so many eyes have wept so bitterly; he has exchanged the eternal for the mortal; the sun, who showed you a bright star, for which the celestial bailiff so graciously produced it. You have earned this splendid picture from your Amsterdam residents: this is how you live after your death, my loyal dear friend!)