Portret van Jean De Labadie 1857 - 1887

This is Frederik Hendrik Weissenbruch’s ‘Portret van Jean De Labadie’, a portrait of Jean de Labadie made using etching. Weissenbruch, born in 1824, produced this etching within a 19th-century Dutch context. Here, portraiture served as a mirror reflecting the growing Dutch national identity. Jean de Labadie, the subject, lived in the 17th century and was a French Pietist preacher, who advocated for a more mystical and inward religious experience. Looking at this portrait, what do you feel about this man? Weissenbruch portrays de Labadie with both gravitas and a sense of inner contemplation. Encased in an oval frame decorated with foliage and wreath, de Labadie is timeless yet part of the Dutch visual and cultural history. Weissenbruch, by immortalizing de Labadie through this etching, asks us to consider the ongoing dialogue between faith, identity, and the narratives we choose to preserve.