Kop met hoed 1839

Johannes Tavenraat made this sketch of a head with a hat, in pen and ink, sometime in the 19th century. Tavenraat was a Dutch painter, but he’s remembered mostly as a drawing instructor. This sketch and many others by Tavenraat are now in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, an institution that, in the nineteenth century, played a central role in codifying the history of Dutch art. It served as a repository for artworks, especially drawings, that had been used for teaching. You might call this sketch an institutional artifact as much as a work of art. Its presence in the collection speaks to the way artistic skills were taught at the time, with an emphasis on mastering the fundamentals of drawing. If we want to understand the role of art in Dutch society, looking at collections like this, and archives associated with art academies is essential.