Portret van Frans Francken de oude 1855 - 1915

Friedrich Wilhelm Burmeister made this print of Frans Francken the Elder in 1866. It shows the Flemish painter as a wealthy, important figure. The Netherlands in the 19th century was a place of growing national pride and the creation of museums, like the Rijksmuseum, was part of this. One way to build a sense of national identity was to look back to a previous Golden Age. For the Netherlands, this was the 17th century, when artists like Rembrandt and Frans Francken produced some of the most celebrated paintings in the world. Prints like these helped to remind people of this history and created a sense of continuity between the past and the present. Burmeister has used the conventions of portraiture to show us Francken’s status. To find out more about the making of national identity in the art of the 19th century, you could look at the museum’s records to find out what else they were collecting at this time.