Portrait of a Scholar

Artist Willem Moreelse (Dutch, 1618/1623-1666)

Place of OriginNetherlands

Date1647

DimensionsH: 32 5/8 in. (82.8 cm); W: 26 3/8 in. (67 cm)

MediumOil on canvas

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1962.70

Not on View

Label TextPortraits were one of the most popular forms of art commissioned in the Netherlands in the 1600s. For the growing middle class of successful merchants, they were an important way to establish lineage or family legacy, proclaim status, and mark milestones. In this portrait, the young man (his age is given at the top right as 21) wears the bonnet and laurel leaves of a university doctoral graduate—the 17th-century Dutch version of a cap and gown. The medal around his neck bears the coats of arms of the city and the university of Utrecht. The man holds up a book, open to two botanical illustrations, one of which bears the Latin verse, “This herb points out the presence of God.” The illustrations depict the herbs euphorbium (on the left) and dock, both used at the time in treatments for the bubonic plague. The identity of the man has not yet been determined.Published References

Saisselin, R.G., Style, Truth and the Portrait, Cleveland Museum of Art, 1963, no. 14.

"Treasures for Toledo," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol. 7, no. 4, Winter 1964, repr. p. 87.

Frankfurter, A., "Museum Evaluations, 2: Toledo," Art News, LXIII, no. 9, Jan. 1965, pp. 26, 56, fig. 4.

Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, European Paintings, Toledo, 1976, pp. 114-115, pl. 128.

Zo wijd de wereld strekt, The Hague, Mauritshuis, 1979, no. 243, repr. p. 183.

Wilson, William H., Dutch Seventeenth Century Portraiture: the Golden Age, Sarasota, 1980, repr. fig. 15, with some text (not in exhibition.).

Palmer, Robert Roswell et al., A History of the Modern World to 1815, 9th ed., New York, Knopf, 2002, p. 273, repr.

Dixon, Laurinda S., "Privileged Piety: Melancholia and the Herbal Tradition", Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art, vol. 1, issue 2, 2009, p. 11, repr. col. fig. 20.

Clingerman, Forrest, "From Artwork to Place: Finding the Voices of Moreelse, Bacon, and Beuys at the Hermeneutical Intersection of Culture and Nature," Environmental Philosophy, 2011, pp. 5-7, repr. cover.

Dixon, Laurinda S., The Dark Side of Genius: the Melancholic Persona in Art, ca. 1500-1700, University Park, PA, 2013, pp. 103-106, fig. 73, repr. (col.) p. 104. Moqtaderi, Heather and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, An Inner World: Seventeenth-Century Dutch Genre Painting, Philadelphia, Arthur Ross Gallery, University of Pennsylvania, April 1, 2021, p. 52, fig. 4.4 repr. (col.), p. 51

Exhibition History

Cleveland Museum of Art, Style, Truth and the Portrait, 1963, no. 14.

The Hague, Mauritshuis, Zo wijd de wereld strekt, 1979-1980, no. 243.