Portret van Herman Jacob Constant van Nouhuijs 1845

This is a portrait of Herman Jacob Constant van Nouhuijs, made by Johann Wilhelm (I) Kaiser. Here we see an image of bourgeois respectability in the 19th-century Netherlands. The sitter is presented as a cultivated man, surrounded by books and papers. But this image of personal virtue also has a public dimension. Portraiture was then typically commissioned by those with enough wealth to project a certain image of themselves. Van Nouhuijs is presented here as part of the Dutch political and social establishment. Consider how Kaiser uses the conventions of portraiture to signal Van Nouhuijs's status. His careful dress and composed posture are visual cues. What do these codes tell us about the society that produced them? What are the politics of this imagery? As historians, we can research the lives of both artist and sitter, and so come to a deeper understanding of the social conditions that made this image possible. Art always exists within a social and institutional context.