Portret van Rehuel Lobatto c. 1847 - 1865

This lithograph portrays Rehuel Lobatto, rendered by the Koninklijke Nederlandse Steendrukkerij van C.W. Mieling. The portrait itself is a tableau of 19th-century respectability. Consider the cravat he wears— a symbol of civic virtue. In ancient Rome, the orator's neck was similarly bound, signifying eloquence and reasoned discourse. We see echoes of this in Renaissance portraiture, where the open collar denoted intellectual freedom, and again here, in Lobatto's time, where it spoke of professional standing. This recurring motif, this constriction of the neck, is not merely sartorial but psychological. It embodies the tension between individual expression and societal expectation, a recurring theme throughout history. It surfaces in unexpected forms, like the tightly wound turbans of the East or the constricting corsets of European aristocracy. The cyclical nature of these motifs reveals the interplay of cultural memory.