Man met tulband en bril in de hand aan tafel waarop munten en buidels 1772

Johann Andreas Benjamin Nothnagel created this etching of a man with a turban, eyeglasses and coins in Frankfurt in 1772. The image's dedication suggests it was intended for an art collector, likely one with a particular interest in prints. The image employs a visual vocabulary that would have been easily legible to its 18th-century audience. The turban, for example, signals the figure’s association with the ‘Orient’, a signifier of wealth and exoticism. The coins and bags of money on the table associate him with trade and commerce, professions with a growing role in the economic life of Frankfurt at this time. Frankfurt was a centre of banking and trade, so one can wonder whether the artist wanted to celebrate these developments or maybe question the changing social structures. By studying Frankfurt's economic and cultural history through sources like period newspapers, census records, and guild archives, we can begin to understand the values and anxieties reflected in this etching.