Portret van een onbekende man 19th century

Eugenio Silvestri made this portrait of an unknown man as an engraving. Without knowing the date of this print, we can only speculate on the origins of its subject. Likenesses such as this can be found throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, across Europe, spurred on by the growth of a mercantile class anxious to record their status for posterity. Silvestri’s subject is well-groomed and fashionably attired, with close cropped hair, beard and moustache, and wearing a doublet with a crisp white collar. But who was he, and who was Silvestri? What were the social institutions that brought the two men together? Did they come from the same social class? Was the sitter a patron of the artist? Without answers to such questions, we can only guess at the meaning of the image. To explore these questions further, an art historian would look at archival sources, genealogical records, and inventories of possessions. Each of these resources could shed further light on the circumstances of the image’s production. Art such as this is not made in a vacuum; it is contingent on social and institutional factors.