Portret van Martinus Stuart 1793 - 1816

This is Reinier Vinkeles’s portrait of Martinus Stuart, made as an engraving, a medium that lends itself to precise detail and the dissemination of images. The portrait, framed in an oval, presents Stuart in the garb of his vocation—the simple clerical collar marking him as a man of the cloth, a minister perhaps. Consider this collar: It speaks volumes, doesn’t it? A seemingly simple piece of attire, yet it echoes the stiff, starched ruffs of the 16th century, symbols of piety and status. Think of how those ruffs constrained movement, dictating posture, much like the doctrines they represented! Now, the clerical collar. It is a direct descendant, purified, if you will. But has it truly shed its ancestral baggage? Observe how such symbols recur, subtly altered, across epochs. The evolution is never linear, never complete. The past lingers, a palimpsest beneath the present. It is in the wearing of such symbols that collective memory resides, influencing not just the wearer, but also the viewer, stirring subconscious recognition and, perhaps, unease.