Portret van Bruno van der Dussen 1749 - 1780

Curator: So, here we have "Portret van Bruno van der Dussen," an engraving dating roughly between 1749 and 1780, attributed to Jacob Houbraken. It's currently housed in the Rijksmuseum. What are your initial thoughts? Editor: The wig. It just dominates everything! It's like a frothy cloud threatening to engulf his rather…stolid face. I can practically feel the powder, the weight, the sheer societal expectation it represents. A bit suffocating, if I'm honest. Curator: Wigs were certainly potent symbols of status, weren't they? Think about the cultural load they carried, announcing position, wealth, adherence to fashion…This isn't just hair; it’s a statement, a visual cue operating within a very specific social grammar. Editor: Precisely! It speaks volumes even before you consider his somewhat heavy-lidded gaze. Is it me, or is there a hint of world-weariness there? Like he's seen too many powdered wigs and pompous pronouncements in his time. Curator: Perhaps. Or maybe that’s the Baroque style influencing the pose, that slightly melancholic air popular in portraiture. But the framing of the oval portrait itself – sitting above that vacant rectangular plaque - seems to invite an inscription that would speak volumes. What words would properly capture him, do you think? Editor: Hmmm... I'm leaning towards something ironic, something that undercuts the grandeur. Maybe a witty little epigram, something unexpected and faintly subversive, given the formality of the presentation. Perhaps an acknowledgement that the "official" representation may be obscuring a real person underneath all the frippery? Curator: That's a fantastic way to view it – peeling back the layers of visual rhetoric. It highlights how portraits are not simply records but constructed narratives. Editor: It all reminds me how our carefully crafted images project power but simultaneously hint at the constraints of the roles we play. It makes you wonder what Bruno van der Dussen truly thought about it all... beneath the wig. Curator: Indeed. An echo of identity, both presented and perhaps obscured. Editor: Exactly. It is a complex distillation of character.