7

Hendrik Jan van Amerom (1777-1833)
Self-portrait with wife and . Signed and dated H.J. v. Amerom fec. 1804. Canvas, 56.5 x 42 cm.

Arnhem, Gemeentemuseum, inv. nr. GM 2007. Presented by C. 't Hooft, director of the Fodor Museum, Amsterdam, in 1929.

The painter drinks a cup of tea poured by his homely wife while they gaze at each other soulfully. It is their son who establishes eye contact with the observer – from behind a parapet, holding on to his mother's skirt for added safety.

While the same tools and signs of the artist's trade are displayed by the shy van Amerom as by the energetic van Swanenburgh (cat. nr. 1), there is a world of difference between what the two men do with them. Van Swanenburgh deploys them to demonstrate his social and professional status while van Amerom, who taught drawing at at the Arnhem academy, lounges among them, as if he were the attribute, a slave to art and family love. Yet he is not being quite as candid with us as he makes himself out to be. A contemporary biographer tells us that van Amerom was lame in one leg from an accident, and that he walked on crutches. In the painting, he disguises his handicap as romantic nonchalance.

Van Eijnden and van der Willigen, vol.3, pp.212-213. Immerzeel 1842, p. 7.