Gezicht van een vrouw

Abraham de Haen the Second made this sketch of a woman’s face on paper in the Netherlands during the first half of the 18th century. De Haen was a painter and draughtsman of portraits and historical pieces, as well as an etcher and poet. As a young artist, he was part of Amsterdam's artistic and intellectual circles. This explains his appointment as a director of the Amsterdamse Tekenacademie, or Drawing Academy, an important art institution with a public role. It's difficult to say why he made this sketch of a woman, given its unfinished state. Was it a preparatory study? Or was it a spontaneous, private drawing? What is clear, however, is that we must consider the social conditions that make an artwork such as this possible: the institutions that train artists, the social circles they are a part of, and the artist's own social class. As art historians, we look at these kinds of artworks through the lens of cultural and institutional history. By researching the artist's life and times, we can understand more about the meaning and significance of their work.