« Autoportrait 1681 » Johannes Lutma le Jeune (1624 – 1685)

Engraving.
Dimensions: 31 cm x 22.3 cm
Five prints by Lutma the Younger (1624 - 1685) represent portraits of busts placed in a niche including this self-portrait dated 1681.
Johannes Lutma the Elder (1584-1669) was a renowned Dutch silversmith and close friend of Rembrandt, who engraved his portrait in 1656 (Jan Lutma, Goldmisth, New Hollstein Rembrandt No. 293). His son, Johannes Lutma the Younger (1624 - 1685), joined the Antwerp Guild in 1643, and also enjoys an excellent reputation as a goldsmith.
Johannes Lutma the Younger engraved two portraits of his father. The first, an engraving, dated 1656 (the same year as the portrait of Rembrandt), has the title IOANNES LUTMA AURIFECX in the margin. Rembrandt's influence is evident: the portrait is vivid and realistic, showing his father at work, holding a tool and his glasses.
The second portrait represents the bust of his late father, bare shoulders like an antique statue, placed in a niche. The text POSTERITATI. and IANUS. LUTMA. is engraved on the lower part and the base of the statue. However, the portrait of the old man is far from static, as Dana Angotta points out: the very concrete detail of his hair floating around his head, the marked wrinkles on his forehead and neck, and his gaze fixed directly on us. , with his right eye in the center of the composition, obtain an effect of liveliness and presence.
Three other prints by Lutma the Younger also represent bust portraits placed in a niche including a self-portrait dated 1681, a portrait of the poet Pieter Cornelisz Hooft and a portrait of another contemporary poet, Joost van den Vondel. All three are stylistically very close and are engraved in opus mallei (punch engraving), as Johannes Lutma said on each print: per se opere mallei, opus mallei by Ianum Lutma, opus mallei by J. Lutma.
Opus mallei is a technique practiced by goldsmiths: the artist works metal with punches and a hammer. The image thus obtained is made up of tiny dots of variable shape, density, thickness and depth. The plates thus engraved were not intended to be printed, but the goldsmiths thought to apply the technique to engraving. Johannes Lutma the Younger was not the first to use the technique, but he sought to perfect it and wanted to make it known, emphasizing it in the letter of his engravings.
References: Susan Lambert, The Image Multiplied: five centuries of printed reproductions of paintings and drawings; Dana Angotta: "Jan Lutma the Younger: Posteritati" in letters and lines: text and image in the north of the Renaissance and Baroque prints.