Portret van Tobias Oelhafen van Schöllenbach 1649

This is Pieter de Jode the Younger’s portrait of Tobias Oelhafen von Schöllenbach, rendered in engraving. Engravings like this one were not simply a way to record a likeness. Produced in the Netherlands, it shows us something of how status was conferred and recorded in seventeenth-century Europe. Portraits such as this were commissioned and circulated among a small group of elites. The coats of arms, the Latin inscription, and the details of Tobias’s offices all serve to reinforce and broadcast his position in society. Even the swirling frame and the artist’s signature serve this purpose. In a very real sense, the image *performs* status. As art historians, we can research Tobias and his family, or look at other portraits, to understand the conventions of the time. We might study the institutions that shaped artistic production. It's only through this wider contextual understanding that we can begin to appreciate the complex social life of images like this.