Fundatie Collection: The Portrait - From status symbol to self-reflection

GERARD TER BORCH | ANTIONIO SAURA | PAULA MODERSHOHN-BECKER | PAUL CITROEN

In this exhibition, the development of the function of the portrait is easy to see; from a status symbol, which mainly involved the display of wealth, pomp and circumstance - even in the case of children's portraits - to a search for the more inner qualities of man. Thus, until the beginning of the same century, women were painted mainly from the male perspective. Paula Modersohn-Becker at the end of the 19th century is one of the first artists to break with this tradition. She paints many (nude) self-portraits, which exude something quite different: something personal and raw.

_{Gerard ter Borch, Reijnder Craeyvanger, 1658, oil on canvas, on loan from The Leiden Collection, New York}

Header: Paul Citroen, Portrait of Chaja Goldstein, 1938, oil on canvas, Museum de Fundatie Collection Heino / Wijhe

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