Portret van Stephanus Franciscus Geoffroy 1737

Louis Surugue made this portrait of Stephanus Franciscus Geoffroy with etching around 1737. The image encapsulates the ideals of the French Enlightenment, portraying Geoffroy as a man of science and learning. The portrait uses visual cues associated with the social elite, the sitter’s powdered wig, draped cloak, and the book, to suggest education, status and authority. Geoffroy was a professor of medicine and chemistry and a member of several learned societies which the inscription at the bottom of the image lists in detail. Surugue’s image thus comments on the way the institutions of science were structured in the 18th century. To understand the social conditions that shaped this artwork, historians examine archival records of learned societies, university documents, and publications by and about Geoffroy. Close study reveals the institutional and social networks through which knowledge circulated during the Enlightenment. Ultimately, this portrait reminds us that the meaning of art is always contingent on its social and institutional context.