Layers

In the Mauritshuis in The Hague, there is one of those paintings of picture galleries. (‘Apelles Painting Campaspe’ c. 1630 by Willem van Hecht.) In the painting the works of art are stacked on shelves and hung one on top of the other on the walls. The ‘visitors’ mimic classical poses and inhabit the space as if they are models. On the left hand side there is an artist engaged in the process of painting a real model. (This is the Apelles painting Campaste of the title.) So academy and art gallery overlap. In the lower left hand corner van Hecht has shown a framed picture leaning up against a plinth. It shows a banker and his wife counting coins. The banker’s wife is leafing through a book but has been distracted by her husband. The book is open at an illustration which might be Adam and Eve. At the front of the banker’s table there is a small convex mirror – an unlikely artefact for the banker to have at his table, except that, reflected in the mirror is the head of a man in a red turban. Is this the artist of the portrait of the banker and his wife? Or is it a self-portrait of the artist of the picture gallery painting? I am reminded of Georges Perec’s story ‘Un cabinet d’un amateur’ (published in English as ‘A Gallery Portrait) with its dizzying receding perspectives in space and time.