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Munniks, Hendrik
Portrait of a Man Portrait d'un homme
around 1650 années 1640

This painting shows a young man with an elegantly trimmed moustache and goatee, his bobbed hair falling onto his forehead and curling over his ears. The man’s simple costume consists of a black coat closed with buttons at the front, and a flat white lace collar with a scalloped edge, held together with tasselled strings. The broad, smooth handling of the facial features displays a level of abstraction and idealization that relates markedly to the portraiture of Gerrit van Honthorst. A particularly close comparison is Van Honthorst’s Portrait of a Man, 1645. The costume and the facial hair are also similar, both likely reflecting fashions in The Hague around this time. Munniks appears to have chosen the model of Van Honthorst (also evident in his other surviving works) as a deliberate strategy—and a well-chosen one, to judge by his surprising, if short-lived, success in gaining the patronage of the House of Orange in The Hague. It may well be a member of the court who is represented here.

Munniks, Hendrik
Utrecht, Netherlands 1622-Stockholm, Sweden 1664 Utrecht, Netherlands 1622-Stockholm, Sweden 1664
Portrait of a Man Portrait d'un homme
around 1650 années 1640
Oil on canvas Huile sur toile
height / width: 70.00 x 57.00 cm; 27.56 x 22.44 in.
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Alfred Bader, 1978 Don de Dr et Mme Alfred Bader, 1978
21-075

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