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Marketing Naval Heroes: Portrait
Prints during the Anglo-Dutch
Wars
Vanessa Schmidt, Institute of Fine
Arts, New York University
The Anglo-Dutch Wars (1652-74) were
controversial and costly for the
Dutch. The proponents of the war
effort in Amsterdam commissioned
and used works of art to help
garner support for their cause. In
particular, there was significant
attention given to the promotion of
naval heroes and the Admiralty. The
naval board of the Amsterdam
Admiralty commissioned, amongst
other things, tombs, monuments,
medals and history paintings, and
built a vast complex of buildings,
which incorporated architectural
sculpture and paintings. During
this period, series’ of portrait
prints of naval heroes also
appeared, as early as 1652. This
paper will suggest that these
prints were part of a larger
campaign. Placing these portrait
prints within the iconography of
the naval hero brings out how
portrait prints presented a
significant modification of the
image of the admiral as it was
presented to the local Amsterdam
elite in the form of monuments and
paintings in public spaces. Unlike
the lofty associations with ancient
history and aristocratic traditions
of the war hero of the official
commissions, these prints portrayed
home grown, rough-and-ready
defenders of the people. In a
significant adaptation of European
traditions of portrait print series
of rulers and intellectuals,
tradition, the Admirals in these
print series’ are in the humble
costume of the average seaman,
depicted on a ship’s deck at work
and in action, and possess
exaggerated facial expressions and
ruddy features that, while they are
truthful likenesses, make these men
look more common. The inclusion of
poems in vernacular Dutch adds to
this emphasis on the familiar.
As the leading members of Amsterdam’b
s Admiralty board, members of
Amsterdam’s ruling elite were
responsible for the direction and
content of the naval hero
iconography of this period. In
tandem with the larger campaign,
these admiral portrait prints must
be understood as political
propaganda aimed at a wide
audience; moreover, the images of
these men were surely accessible to
a wide range of socio-economic
groups. The messages and undertones
of these prints are overwhelmingly
republican in nature and are
particularly relevant to the
political situation in the city,
where political leaders were at
odds with The Hague orangists
during this stadholderless period.
This paper will demonstrate how
print publishers – Blooteling, in
particular – met the demands of
their patrons through innovative
changes to painted exemplars and
substantially helped to promote the
war effort beyond Amsterdam.
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