Portrait of Abraham Patras, Governor-General of the Dutch East India Company 1735 - 1800

Theodorus Justinus Rheen painted this portrait of Abraham Patras, Governor-General of the Dutch East India Company, around 1735. Rheen, whose short life was spent between the Netherlands and Indonesia, captures Patras in the regalia of his office, a depiction laden with the visual cues of power and authority amidst a time of Dutch colonial expansion. Consider the implications of portraying a figure so deeply entwined with the exploitative practices of the Dutch East India Company. Patras, of mixed Dutch and Indian heritage, embodies the complexities of identity within the colonial context. His position highlights a complicated negotiation of race, class and power. The portrait aestheticizes power, even as it quietly reveals the fraught politics of its time. Rheen's work invites us to reflect on the human cost of empire. By placing Patras in our view, Rheen asks us to confront the legacies of colonialism, prompting a deeper understanding of its lasting impact on both the colonizers and the colonized.