Portrait of Samuel Cornelisz van Esch 1632

This is a portrait of Samuel Cornelisz van Esch, painted anonymously on panel. The intense detail in the boy's costume is made possible by the qualities of oil paint. The artist was able to slowly build up layers, achieving fine gradations of tone and texture, from the stiff white ruff to the brown doublet. It's these material details that speak volumes about the child's identity. The lace trim at his sleeves, the elaborate tailoring of his jacket: these were all products of specialized labor. In the Dutch Golden Age, the textile industry was booming. Samuel’s family clearly had the means to participate in this economy. A portrait like this was itself another kind of commodity, intended to circulate within a social network. By attending closely to materials and their crafting, we can see past the surface of likeness and glimpse the underlying machinery of status, labor and trade.