Jongen verbergt een konijn dat achtervolgd wordt door een windhond 1836

Henri Van der Haert made this drawing in Belgium in the first half of the 19th century. It shows a naked boy seated on a rock, hiding a rabbit from a dog, maybe a greyhound. The scene seems simple, almost allegorical, but in this image the institutions of art, education, and aristocratic patronage are implicitly intertwined. Van der Haert worked in the Royal School of Engraving in Brussels, which would have been trying to establish a clear identity for the newly independent Belgian state. The school gave him a salary, and so gave him the means to produce images such as this, which are both studies after classical models and demonstrations of technical mastery. We can research how images were used in the political arena at this time, and what institutions existed to support the production of art. By piecing together the social and institutional context, we can understand how the image is a product of its time.