Portret van Thomas Gaal

About this artwork

Aankoop uit het F.G. Waller-Fonds

Art Historical Context

"Portret van Thomas Gaal" is delicate portrait created by Pieter Gaal in 1799, capturing likeness of Thomas Gaal—likely a family member, given the shared surname—on a modest sheet of paper measuring just 159 mm high by 114 mm wide. This scale suggests it may have been a personal commission or preparatory sketch, common in late 18th-century Dutch portraiture when artists often worked in smaller formats for private patrons before scaling up to oils. Crafted at the turn of the century, during the Netherlands' Batavian Republic era—a time of political upheaval influenced by the French Revolution—...