Portret van Charles Fleetwood 1740

Curator: The first thing I notice is this remarkable sense of weight. It feels serious, you know? Even stern. Editor: Well, this is Jacob Houbraken’s 1740 engraving, a print called “Portret van Charles Fleetwood,” residing here at the Rijksmuseum. It is, after all, a portrait of a military man, which may explain the gravity. Curator: True, but it goes beyond the subject matter. Look at the density of the lines, especially in the armor, but it really goes further. The engraving, so crisp and deliberate...it’s not just *representing* authority; it *embodies* it, literally pressed into the paper! Editor: You’re keying into something important here, actually. Houbraken was a master engraver, and prints like this were, in their day, a powerful form of dissemination. Think of the labor involved! Every tiny line meticulously carved into a copper plate, replicated hundreds, maybe thousands, of times! Curator: Exactly! It’s almost as though the weight of history, the gravity of power, is etched right into the material. That meticulous craft really drives home the image of Fleetwood as someone, like the material itself, unyielding, inflexible. It’s also ironic - here is a tool, a print, that disseminates a subject so he becomes consumed, objectified. Editor: Interesting point. And the symbols! The lion, of course, and the draped fabric all amplify Fleetwood's position. And note the contrast – that rigid armor against the softness of the lion's fur. Curator: It really asks the question: can anyone actually live up to that image? Are the laboring and consumptive bodies forced to emulate these standards of being? In essence, this man is made icon through work. And it gives me so many more questions that it gives answers. Editor: Yes. The portrait of a man immortalized not only by the engraver's skill but also by the material reality of its creation. An object produced by, of, and perhaps for, an elite. Curator: Thinking of it that way helps bring Fleetwood's story down from its pedestal, in a way. We start to see the hand in his construction, and the choices that were made to render him larger than life. Editor: Exactly. Art for its power.