You can leave your hat on: Men’s portraits, power, and identity in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic

Abstract

This article analyses how citizens in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic used hats in portraits to display their socio-political identity. It demonstrates that in cities like Amsterdam, The Hague, Delft, and Deventer, male sitters had themselves portrayed with their hats off to express their membership of the patrician class, or wearing their hats if they wanted to emphasize their status of private citizen. This “hat language” reflected the Ciceronian idea, commonplace in early modern Europe, that both a life devoted to public service and a life as privatus were honourable. Hat language presumably emerged in individual men’s portraits during the 1610s, when hats also gained meaning in group portraits. It derived from the older tradition of depicting helmets as symbols of military power. Hat language was employed by major portraitists, including Cornelis van der Voort, Michiel van Mierevelt, and Rembrandt, as well as Gerard ter Borch as late as the 1670s.