Portret van Andreas Morell 1756

This is Rudolf Füssli's portrait of Andreas Morell, made with etching, sometime around 1703. Morell was a well-known archaeologist and numismatist. Here, Füssli depicts him in a style befitting a scholar of antiquity. The portrait is framed in an oval wreath and set against a backdrop of classical ruins. To the left, a muscular figure is a herm – a sculpted bust emerging from a pillar, common in ancient Greece. The image creates meaning through its classical references, associating Morell with the intellectual achievements of the ancient world. Füssli was working in Switzerland at a time when archaeology was emerging as a modern science, yet was still closely tied to collecting and connoisseurship. His work, in this context, speaks to the social conditions that shape artistic production, and the politics of imagery. To understand the portrait better, we could investigate the history of archaeology and collecting, exploring period texts that shed light on the cultural milieu in which both Füssli and Morell operated. Remember, art’s meaning is always contingent on social and institutional contexts.