Willem de Poorter, 'An Allegorical Subject (The Just Ruler)', probably 1636

This isn’t a portrait of a person, it is an allegory – an attempt to represent an idea or, perhaps more accurately, an ideal. We see a young man, upright and slightly aloof as he turns his head to look us directly in the eye.

Much of the painting is in gloom, but his face is bathed in the glow from a window high on the left of the picture. The light which streams in picks out the gold embroidery embellishing his cloak, the sceptre which he lays against a globe, and the victor’s laurel wreath he wears around his head. It also reflects back off the curved burnished steel of his cuirass (breastplate), while a crown of state and a coronet glimmer on top of the fragment of classical architecture which he stands before. It appears to be the capital of a square column and the cracks and chips in the stone are probably meant to indicate its antique, classical status rather than imply a symbolic meaning.

With his left hand he gestures to the floor where there is an untidy heap of armour and weapons, as well as what seems to be a military snare drum, weapons and a long curved horn or trumpet. These are the accoutrements of war, and in the background there is also a stand of lances, and an indeterminate flag draped over a bass drum.

Interpreting this symbolism is tricky. The figure may be based on a book of iconology by Cesare Ripa which was published around this time. It includes an illustration of a sumptuously dressed woman wearing a wreath and breastplate and carrying a sceptre. The woman also holds a book, which is missing here; perhaps the parchment in front of our figure may have a similar function. The figure in Ripa’s book is captioned as Merit. If this was de Poorter’s intention here, then we might understand the image as an embodiment of Merit assuming worldly power, and so representing the Just Ruler. He stands (literally) enlightened, the sceptre indicating his authority over the world, or his domain; the crowns, his regal status; the cuirass his strength. He seems to reject the instruments and bombast of war however, in favour of the laws inscribed on the parchment.

The painting was made in about 1636, while this part of the Netherlands was still struggling for independence from the authoritarian rule of Spain, so such a theme is likely to have been a popular one.

Willem de Poorter was apparently born in Haarlem, where he worked. He may have been a pupil of Rembrandt who seems to have influenced his early works around 1631–3, the time when Rembrandt moved from Leiden to Amsterdam. De Poorter seems to have moved back to Haarlem and became known as a painter of biblical, allegorical, and mythological scenes, often, like this one, on a small scale.