Portrait of a Young Man (probably a self-portrait)
1650-51
Medium
Black chalk on antique laid paper, laid down
Dimensions
Sheet: 8 1/4 × 6 15/16 in. (21 × 17.6 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Frits and Rita Markus Fund, 2022
Accession Number
2022.358
Rights
Public Domain
Art Historical Context
In the mid-17th century, during the height of the Dutch Golden Age, Cornelis Visscher created this sensitive Portrait of a Young Man. Likely a self-portrait, the drawing captures a moment of quiet introspection through the artist’s direct gaze. Visscher, celebrated primarily as an engraver, demonstrates here his exceptional skill as a draftsman, using the medium to explore likeness and character with remarkable subtlety. Executed in black chalk on antique laid paper, the work highlights the tactile qualities of the medium—its ability to produce soft tonal gradations and precise lines suited t...
About the Artist
Cornelis Visscher · 1629–1658
Cornelis Visscher (1629–1658) was a Dutch Golden Age engraver, draughtsman, and printmaker born in Haarlem, the brother of fellow artists Jan de Visscher and Lambert Visscher. Little is known of his early life, but he studied under the Haarlem painter and engraver Pieter Claesz Soutman, with whom he closely collaborated from 1649 to 1650, producing numerous portrait engravings for Soutman's print ...