Manshoofd, naar links 1796 - 1850

Jean Augustin Daiwaille drew this head of a man, facing left, in pencil sometime in the first half of the 19th century. The Netherlands, where Daiwaille lived and worked, was then undergoing significant social and political change, including the end of the Napoleonic era and the establishment of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Against this backdrop, the artistic and cultural institutions of the Netherlands were also evolving. Artists grappled with questions of national identity and the role of art in shaping it. A drawing like this might have served as a study for a larger history painting. It idealizes its subject, ennobling his features. To understand this drawing better, a historian might look at the academic system in which Daiwaille trained, perhaps looking at student drawings and teaching manuals from the period. The meaning of art is contingent on its social and institutional context.