Portret van Leopoldus Joannes Antonius van der Kun 1856 - 1867

Wilhelmus Cornelis Chimaer van Oudendorp made this portrait of Leopoldus Joannes Antonius van der Kun using lithography, probably sometime in the mid-19th century. At this time, in the Netherlands and across Europe, lithography was becoming a common way to reproduce images. As a printing technique it supported a growing art market and the rise of mass media. What we see here is a straightforward portrait of a man who was likely a member of the middle class. In line with the norms of bourgeois portraiture at the time, his gaze is direct, his bearing serious and his clothing respectable. He is an individual, but he also signifies the social class to which he belonged. To understand the image more fully we might research into the Van der Kun family and the rise of the middle classes in the Netherlands. Art historians treat images as historical documents. This approach shows how much the meaning of an artwork is tied to its social and institutional context.