Portret van een man met bril, mogelijk Nehemia de Lieme 1875 - 1934

Curator: This drawing, attributed to Isaac Israels and entitled "Portret van een man met bril, mogelijk Nehemia de Lieme," dates from somewhere between 1875 and 1934. It’s a pencil sketch on paper. Editor: My initial feeling is that this is just lovely, so raw, immediate, but with such considered subtlety. It feels very intimate somehow. A little shy, perhaps. Curator: I find the visible pencil work particularly compelling; the hatching, the weight of the lines implying form and shadow. Semiotically, the glasses are central; they symbolize intellect, observation, perhaps a certain self-awareness. Editor: Those eyeglasses definitely dictate the narrative. They become enormous, defining the man’s face. Are they shielding him, or sharpening his vision? It reminds me of those huge diving helmets, alluding to buried worlds and hidden perspectives. The tentative sketch gives it an almost dreamlike quality. Curator: The lack of precise detail invites the viewer to engage with the process of construction itself, to participate in the making of the portrait. This destabilizes the traditional power dynamic between artist and subject, viewer and artwork. Editor: Absolutely, that incompleteness is key! He could be anyone, this man. It makes him universal. It feels so true to the transient nature of a sketch. The impressionism almost foreshadows how a person is never fully formed. It breathes life and space into art, and perhaps beyond art, also. Curator: That reading resonates with the drawing's positioning within impressionism—capturing a fleeting moment. I hadn't thought of that specifically until you said. Editor: Precisely! The imperfection is perfection. Anyway, a rather nice chap with smashing glasses I think. It’s like an artist laying bare how to see!