Abstract
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam owns one of the most curious portraits ever made in the seventeenth century – the likeness of the Dutch classical scholar and notorious erotomaniac Hadriaan Beverland (1650-1716), who was banished from the Dutch Republic in 1679 because of his scandalous publications. In the portrait – a brunaille – the libertine rake sits at a table with a prostitute; a provocative scene. Why did this young humanist promote such a confrontational image of himself? In this article the author analyses the portrait and explores Beverland’s motives for his remarkable manner of self-promotion, going on to argue that it was the starting point for a calculated campaign of portraits. Over the years Beverland commissioned at least four more portraits of himself, including one in which he is shown drawing the naked back of a statue of Venus. Each of his portraits was conceived with a view to giving his changeable reputation a push in the right direction. They attest to a remarkable and extraordinarily self-assured expression of identity seldom encountered in seventeenth-century portraiture.
Highlights
The Rijksmuseum has the art historian François Gérard Waller (1867-1934) to thank for more than fifty thousand prints and drawings; some donated during his lifetime, some bequeathed by him and, since 1938, many purchased with money from the fund that bears his name.[1]
The museum holds a number of paintings from his collection, including a panel portrait in brunaille of the Dutch classics scholar and infamous erotomaniac Hadriaan Beverland (1650-1716; fig. 1), notorious for his banishment from the Dutch Republic because of his scandalous writings.[2]
Beverland placed ‘natural ness’ and genuineness above restric tion and hypocrisy.[5]. In his studies he aimed to criticize his fellow humanist scholars’ repressive attitude to sexuality, and the negative view of sexuality in contemporary Christian society.[6]. He was convinced that sexual desire predominated in all people and in all eras, using a traditional philosophical approach to adduce the proof of his theory
Summary
The Rijksmuseum has the art historian François Gérard Waller (1867-1934) to thank for more than fifty thousand prints and drawings; some donated during his lifetime, some bequeathed by him and, since 1938, many purchased with money from the fund that bears his name.[1]. The Self-Promotion of a Libertine Bad Boy: Hadriaan Beverland’s Portrait with a Prostitute in the Rijksmuseum
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