Portret van Pieter de Wolff Jr. 1686 - 1713

This is a portrait of Pieter de Wolff Jr. made by Pieter Schenk. The young man stands confidently, with a hunting rifle, a symbol of nobility and dominion over nature. Next to him is a dog, emblematic of loyalty, a motif that hearkens back to ancient depictions of fidelity. But consider the rifle itself. We see its echoes in classical depictions of Hercules with his club, or even earlier, in the scepters of ancient rulers. The gun, then, is not merely an instrument of hunting, but a scepter of modern power, loaded with implications of control, authority, and even latent aggression. Such motifs are never truly new. They are inherited, passed down, altered by the subconscious currents of history. The image stirs a sense of power, and of what remains as a human constant, only shifting form to reappear in different guises throughout time.