Portret van Jacobus Anne van der Chijs Possibly 1865

Johann Peter Berghaus created this portrait of Jacobus Anne van der Chijs using lithography. Van der Chijs was Inspector of Dutch Education in the Dutch East Indies, and Director of the Batavia Society for Arts and Sciences. Portraits like this provide insight into the visual culture of the Dutch colonial era. Van der Chijs is portrayed with a stern look, embodying the authority associated with his role in the colonial administration. The strict formality in his attire speaks to the rigid social hierarchies of the time. How might the subjects of Dutch education, the native Indonesian population, have viewed portraits like this of their colonizers? The image operates as a signifier of Dutch power. As such, it perpetuated the visual rhetoric of colonial dominance. Yet we might wonder about the impact on those whose identities were being reshaped by colonial educational practices. Berghaus’s portrait invites us to consider the complex relationship between representation, identity, and power in the context of Dutch colonialism.