Portret van Pieter Johannes Veth 1874 - 1925

Jan Veth drew this portrait of Pieter Johannes Veth, likely towards the end of the 19th century, using a graphite pencil on paper. This isn’t the oil paint on canvas we expect for a formal portrait, and the use of pencil allowed for the quick rendering of the composition, with lines still visible from the grid used for the drawing, suggesting it might have been a preliminary study. The choice of graphite is interesting, as it’s a material fundamentally linked to industrial production. Graphite mines were scaling up in the 19th century to meet the burgeoning demand for pencils, crucial for administrative work and technical drawing. Here, though, the artist takes this mass-produced material and applies it to the fine art of portraiture. Note how the softness of the graphite allows for subtle gradations of tone. The artist captures the gravitas of his sitter through careful shading, without needing to build up layers of pigment. It's a reminder that even the humblest material, when wielded with skill, can be elevated into art. This work blurs the line between the industrial and the artistic, the mass-produced and the unique.