# Portrait of a Gentleman [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [HOOGSTRATEN, Samuel van]() - Date: 1651-1700 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 103 x 85 cm ## Commentary In his 'Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst' \(Introduction to the Art of Painting, 1678\), van Hoogstraten discusses the optical theories of contemporary thinkers like Descartes, Bacon and Dighy, and adds his own comments. The scientists with whom he was in touch had a particular interest in optics, most notable was the Dordrecht mechanic and opticist Caspar Calthoff, whose portrait van Hoogstraten painted in 1650. Calthoff worked with important physicists like Christiaan Huygens, when he and his brother Constantijn decided to make their own lenses for their microscopes, it was Calthoff who supplied the grinding discs. ## Related artworks - [Annunciation of the Death of the Virgin]() - [Letter Board]() - [Man Looking through a Window]() - [Mother with a Child in a Wicker Cradle]() - [Portrait of Johan Cornelisz. Vijgeboom and His Wife]() - [Self-Portrait]() - [Self-Portrait]() - [The Anaemic Lady]() - [Tobias's Farewell to his Parents]() - [Tromp-l'oeil Still-Life]() - [Trompe-l'oeil Still-Life]() - [Two Women by a Cradle]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()