Portret van de schilder Johannes Voorhout (I) 1670 - 1719

Arnold Houbraken made this portrait of the painter Johannes Voorhout in the Netherlands, sometime around the turn of the 18th century. It's rendered in pen and grey ink. These likenesses were often commissioned by artists' collectives or guilds, meant to represent the prominence of their members, and circulated as prints. Houbraken, who was himself a painter and engraver, later became an art historian, giving us a clue to his interest in portraiture. Likenesses such as this are therefore records of a social network. The emphasis is on the sitter's face, framed by a large wig and an octagonal border. To understand this work, it helps to examine the records of artists' guilds and academies, whose archives tell us much about the economic and cultural life of artists at the time. The study of art history, then, is as much about institutions as it is about individuals.