Nearly a century has passed since Dr. Abraham Wassenbergh’s first significant contribution to the field. He defended his dissertation on sixteenth-century Frisian portraiture at the Sorbonne in France in 1934, and published a volume on seventeenth-century Frisian portraits in 1967.

Het Friese Portret aims to build upon Wassenbergh’s important work by creating a comprehensive follow-up publication. Thanks in part to the digitization of artworks, a large number of portraits have been rediscovered in recent years. The foundation’s new standard work will incorporate these newly identified pieces, along with the latest knowledge about painters working in the region. Attention will be paid to numerous aspects, such as the artists, the subjects and their networks, the clothing and jewelry depicted in the portraits, and the social and economic context in which the portraits were created.