Portret in profiel van een Timorees 1821

This is Adrianus Johannes Bik’s pencil and watercolour drawing, ‘Profile Portrait of a Timorese Man’. It resides in the Rijksmuseum. Bik made this portrait at a time when the Dutch colonial empire was expanding its reach across the Indonesian archipelago. His rendering of the Timorese man, with careful attention to his headdress and earrings, speaks to the European fascination with exotic cultures and their traditions. The image also creates a sense of distance and otherness, reinforcing the power dynamics of colonialism. We can see the influence of Dutch ethnographic studies, which sought to document and classify the diverse populations under their control. Bik’s artistic choices reflect the social structures of his time, where European artists often depicted non-Western subjects through a lens of cultural superiority. To fully understand this artwork, we can examine colonial archives, travel literature, and ethnographic studies. These sources reveal the complex interplay between art, power, and representation in the context of Dutch colonialism.