Figuurstudie van een man van Makassar die een doos vasthoudt 1824

Adrianus Johannes Bik made this pencil drawing of a man from Makassar holding a box, although the exact date is unknown. The sketch offers a glimpse into the Dutch colonial gaze of the time. During the 19th century, the Dutch increasingly exerted control over the region that is now Indonesia, and artists like Bik played a role in documenting and categorizing its people. Here, we see a man of Makassar, part of a vibrant trading culture, rendered with a particular focus on his dress and posture. It is through the Rijksmuseum's rich collections of drawings, colonial-era documents, and anthropological studies that we can reconstruct the social dynamics at play. Was this drawing made for scientific purposes, or was it intended for a more general European audience interested in the exotic 'other'? By examining the context in which such images were created and consumed, we can better understand the power dynamics of the colonial era and the politics of representation.