Portret van Hendrik Alting 1654

Steven van Lamsweerde produced this print, a portrait of Henricus Alting, sometime between 1620 and 1686. It's an intriguing image to consider in relation to the religious and intellectual climate of the Dutch Golden Age. The print presents Alting as a figure of scholarly authority, surrounded by Latin inscriptions that speak to his virtues and accomplishments. Note the references to his birth in Emden and his death in Groningen. The details, such as his simple, unadorned clothing and the emphasis on his intellectual achievements, speak to the values of the Protestant Reformation and the rise of humanist scholarship. It's worth noting that Alting was a professor of theology, and his image would have circulated within academic and religious circles. To understand this print more fully, we might turn to university archives, theological treatises, and biographical accounts. These resources help us reconstruct the social and intellectual networks in which Alting operated. The meaning of this image is contingent on its specific historical context.