page_title: Michiel Sweerts
section_title: Portraits and tronies
hierarchical_section_title: Michiel Sweerts / Work / Portraits and tronies
context_page_description: Michiel Sweerts or Michael Sweerts was a Flemish painter and printmaker of the Baroque period, who is known for his allegorical and genre paintings, portraits and tronies. The artist led an itinerant life and worked in Rome, Brussels, Amsterdam, Persia and India.
  While in Rome Sweerts became linked to the group of Dutch and Flemish painters of low-life scenes known as the Bamboccianti. Sweerts' contributions to the Bamboccianti genre display generally greater stylistic mastery and social-philosophical sensitivity than the other artists working in this manner. While he was successful during his lifetime, Sweerts and his work fell into oblivion until he was rediscovered in the 20th century as one of the most intriguing and enigmatic artists of his time.
context_section_description: In his portraits Sweerts proved himself on a par with the leading contemporaries in the field.  Sweerts is believed to have painted his tronies in Brussels or Amsterdam, i.e. between 1655 and 1661.  He showed an interest in depicting ordinary people and exploring character and different expressions.  In his Clothing the naked Sweerts portrayed very non-classical (i.e. Netherlandish-looking) figures whose features are emphasized by sideway glances and curious expressions.  The beautiful daylight and velvety backgrounds can also be found in works by Johannes Vermeer.  Sweerts' tronies of young women with their use of antique props also anticipate Vermeer. This work and another work such as the Anthonij de Bordes and his valet (National Gallery of Art) are examples of portraits that take the form of genre paintings.
  His subject matter is close to that of Dutch genre painters such as Pieter de Hooch and Vermeer. His Head of a Woman (ca. 1654, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles) is a noteworthy example of his ability to capture the lively and distinctive humanity of even his most humble, anonymous subjects.
  His Portrait of a young woman (c. 1660, Kremer Collection), which is likely a portrait of a simple maidservant, also shows Sweerts' interest in portraying common people.  The painting has been compared to the Girl with a Pearl Earring painted by Vermeer some five years later. The young girls in both compositions are depicted with a combination of realism and idealisation. There are important differences between the two works.  Vermeer's composition is more compact, his light reflections are more subtle and Vermeer uses yellow and blue tones in a more daring manner. Vermeer further shows the young girl wearing an exotic turban and a pearl earring that appears too big to be real.  Sweerts prefers to show the girl as a simple maidservant without frills.
  Some of Sweerts' tronies can be traced back to the "low life" studies of characters in the Spanish Netherlands through Adriaen Brouwer and his followers to Pieter Bruegel the Elder in the 1560s. Sweerts succeeded in making these subjects look freshly observed. An example is the Man holding a jug (Metropolitan Museum of Art).  In this depiction of a tavern habitué Sweerts succeeds in displaying his remarkable gifts for describing character as well as physical substances and light effects.
  Sweerts painted a number of self-portraits and some of his portraits are regarded as being self-portraits. The earliest known self-portrait of about 1648-50 (Uffizi) shows the artist wearing a beret with a plunging feather giving him a distinctly 'bohemian' air.
  His Self-portrait of 1656 (Allen Memorial Art Museum) shows the artist in a confident pose. This self-portrait stands in a long-established line of self-portraits by Netherlandish artists, showing themselves with the tools of their craft. His elegant, aristocratic appearance also brings to mind the artist portraits in Iconography of Anthony van Dyck, published in Antwerp between 1636 and 1641. The emphasis is on showing the artist as a virtuoso who possesses an aristocratic posture, learning and esteem. Sweerts made a mirror image reproduction of this self-portrait in an etching bearing the inscription Michael Sweerts Eq. Pi. et fe.
  In another self-portrait, probably painted about 1655, the artist points to a skull as a vanitas reminder. Another presumed self-portrait is the Portrait of a young man (1656, Hermitage), which shows a young man in a melancholy pose.  It was previously believed that the sitter's mood was connected to his financial difficulties.  The current view is that the painting is a pensieroso (pensive) portrait, a motive going back to the fifteenth-century Neoplatonic concept that melancholy is the distinguishing feature of the creative character.  The allegorical significance of the objects in the painting such as old books, empty purse, gold coins, and inkwell is consistent with this interpretation. 
  The portrait also has a moralizing inscription, RATIO QUIQUE REDDENDA (Every man must give an accounting). This allego
caption: Head of a woman
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