Portret van Johann Ernst Schmieden 1692 - 1731

Pieter van Gunst made this print of Johann Ernst Schmieden using engraving techniques. Prints like this one played an important role in solidifying the status and social capital of individuals like Schmieden. Consider how the image creates meaning. The sitter's elaborate wig, fashionable clothing, and dignified pose are visual codes of status in Northern European society during this time. The print was likely made in the Netherlands. We can think about how the culture of the Dutch Republic – its mercantile economy, relatively open society, and traditions of civic portraiture – might have influenced it. Here, we see the sitter in relation to institutions of power, and how those came to bear on self-fashioning. Further research into Dutch printmaking of the period, as well as the biographies of Van Gunst and Schmieden, would reveal even more about the social conditions that shaped the print’s production.