Portret van David Jorisz. 1788

Reinier Vinkeles created this portrait of David Jorisz. using etching, a printmaking technique, sometime before his death in 1816. The image reminds us that portraiture has long been used to shape public perception and memory. David Jorisz. was a Dutch Anabaptist leader, whose beliefs were considered heretical by the dominant Calvinist church, as well as by other Anabaptist groups. Vinkeles’ print thus raises questions of how religious dissenters were represented, and how their images might function within particular social and political contexts. We might ask, for example, for whom was this portrait made? How would it have been circulated? And what kind of statement might it have made about the subject? To answer these questions, the art historian would turn to archival sources that shed light on Dutch religious history, print culture, and the biographies of both the artist and his subject. Through such research, we can understand the complex interplay between art, belief, and power.