Eglon van der Neer's 'Portrait of Aernout van Overbeke': the frame makes the man

• Autores: Dennis P. Weller
• Localización: Burlington magazine, ISSN 0007-6287, Vol. 151, Nº 1271, 2009, págs. 98-101
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • A consideration of an early work by the artist Eglon van der Neer, dating to the late 1650s or early 1660s, and in the collection of the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh. Depicting a seated young man, the painting is of admittedly marginal quality. However, its unusual frame has drawn renewed interest toward it. The frame is characteristic of the elaborately carved frames of 17th-century Holland that reflected the professions or aspirations of sitters. However, this example includes numerous motifs traditionally associated with vice and overindulgence, serving to reinforce the perceived character of the young dandy depicted in the painting itself. Nevertheless, the identification of the sitter as one Aernout can Overbeke, a minor poet and bureaucrat best known as a collector of jokes, adages, and other comic writings, means that the frame of the piece can nevertheless be characterized as “occupational” in nature.