Portraits of Cornelis and Johan de Witt, Abraham Bloteling, after Jan de Baen, c. 1660 - before c. 1690
paper, h 271mm × w 215mm More details
The brothers Cornelis and Johan de Witt owe part of their fame to the gruesome manner in which they were murdered, that is lynched by an enraged mob in The Hague in 1672. Presumably, these portraits of both statesmen were made after their deaths. They are executed in mezzotint, a brand-new graphic technique at the time, which allowed for much more nuanced shades of grey than other printing techniques could achieve.
