Portretbuste van een oude man met baard 1798 - 1837

Ernst Willem Jan Bagelaar made this tiny etching of an old bearded man sometime between the late 18th and early 19th century in the Netherlands. Look at the expressive quality of the face and the sharp lines of the etching. Portraiture in the Netherlands served various social functions: commemorating personal achievements, cementing social bonds, and conveying civic pride. This piece, though, is more of a character study than a formal portrait. Who was this man? Was he someone Bagelaar knew? The image evokes the tradition of the so-called "tronie," a Dutch word for a common type of painting in the 17th century. Tronies depicted stock characters or archetypes, like the "old man." These images served an important social function. Artists created them for the market, to be sold to a growing middle class who used them to adorn their homes. To understand this image better, we could delve into the archives of Dutch art institutions. What other kinds of images were in circulation in the Netherlands at this time? What social functions did they serve? These are some questions that might help us to better understand art’s place in society.