Painting, Play, and Politics : A Technical Examination of the Painting Polyxena is Sacrificed and its Cultural Context in the Dutch Golden Age

The study departs from a technical examination of the panel painting Polyxena is Sacrificed in the Stockholm University Collection of Art, establishing the artistic process, level of ambition, and material choices by means of multispectral imaging techniques and elemental analysis. The artist, Jacob de Wet I, was both a well-reputed Haarlem-painter who specialized in small scale history paintings and headed a mass-producing workshop which supplied the low-end art markets of Haarlem and Amsterdam. The study places this artwork within the artist’s broad range of production. Further, the social and cultural contexts of the painting are investigated by comparing it to other artist’s versions of the subject, by means of an iconographical analysis of the image, and by examining its prominent theatrical features in relation to Dutch theatre traditions. By combining the technical, social, and cultural findings, the study aims to establish – and to delimit – a specific place in the art market and to suggest a possible type of customer for the painting. Confirming the work’s originality and authenticity, the results show an intuitive, thus likely time-consuming artistic process, a wide palette including expensive pigments – all indicative of a high level of ambition. In combination with the subject matter, these results suggest the painting to be a commissioned work. Further, the image and its social and cultural context, indicate the commissioner to be a person of some formal power within the Amsterdam society, seeking to communicate high erudition and to express liberal political views. De Wet effectively expresses his message using a combination of painterly effects, including the materiality of the paint.