Portret van de ridder Anthony Sherley 1600 - 1604

Curator: Here we have a baroque-style print by Dominicus Custos, dating back to between 1600 and 1604. It's a portrait titled "Portret van de ridder Anthony Sherley," currently housed right here at the Rijksmuseum. Editor: Wow, the detail is incredible for a print from that era. It has this really intense, almost theatrical feel to it, don’t you think? Like he's posing for the ages. Curator: Absolutely. Custos was a master of engraving, and you can see it in the meticulous rendering of Sherley’s garments and the textures of his hair and beard. It’s worth noting Sherley was a somewhat controversial English adventurer. Editor: Adventurer is one word for it! I can see the cocksure confidence in his expression, a man who knew how to play the game of courtly politics...and maybe bend the rules a little bit along the way. But what about the inscription around the edge? It feels a little overwrought. Curator: That’s very typical of baroque portraiture; The lettering declares his titles: that Anthony was an Ambassador of Persia in the role of Statesman under the king. The artwork certainly speaks to the way that power was performed and visualized at the time. Portraits were strategic tools in self-fashioning. Editor: It's a fascinating glimpse into the persona someone wanted to project. Still, for all his pomp and circumstance, he does have this kind of melancholic weight about him in this engraving, doesn’t he? It hints at the price of ambition. Or maybe the engraver was having a bad day. Who knows? Curator: Maybe a bit of both! What I see is the embodiment of political aspiration rendered through a very particular artistic style which had significant impact in visual culture. Editor: Well said. And I’m taking away a sense of how appearances mattered, maybe even more than reality, back then. Makes you think about our own carefully curated images these days, doesn't it? Curator: It does indeed. Perhaps we are not so far removed from Sir Anthony Sherley as we imagine!