Vier putti onder een boom Possibly 1798 - 1799

Jurriaan Andriessen made this pen and ink drawing, Vier putti onder een boom, sometime between 1742 and 1819. It’s a simple sketch, depicting a scene of four putti, or cherubic children, under a tree. Andriessen lived during a time of significant social stratification. The presence of putti in art often served to ennoble the families who commissioned such works. Putti were deployed as allegorical figures, linking the families to virtues such as love, peace, or prosperity. Here, Andriessen offers a scene of putti in seeming innocence, perhaps intended to evoke a sense of purity. The emotional complexity comes from the seemingly unfinished state of the drawing. The rapidly drawn lines might evoke the fleeting nature of childhood. While these images were often commissioned by the upper classes to adorn their homes and thus reinforce their identity, Andriessen hints at a more temporal, less idealized image of childhood.