The Self-Promotion of a Libertine Bad Boy: Hadriaan Beverland’s Portrait with a Prostitute in the Rijksmuseum

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam owns one of the most curious portraits ever made in the seventeenth century – the likeness of the Dutch classical scholar and notorious erotomaniac Hadriaan Beverland (1650-1716), who was banished from the Dutch Republic in 1679 because of his scandalous publications. In the portrait – a brunaille – the libertine rake sits at a table with a prostitute; a provocative scene. Why did this young humanist promote such a confrontational image of himself? In this article the author analyses the portrait and explores Beverland’s motives for his remarkable manner of self-promotion, going on to argue that it was the starting point for a calculated campaign of portraits. Over the years Beverland commissioned at least four more portraits of himself, including one in which he is shown drawing the naked back of a statue of Venus. Each of his portraits was conceived with a view to giving his changeable reputation a push in the right direction. They attest to a remarkable and extraordinarily self-assured expression of identity seldom encountered in seventeenth-century portraiture.

T he Rijksmuseum has the art historian François Gérard Waller (1867-1934) to thank for more than fifty thousand prints and drawings; some donated during his lifetime, some bequeathed by him and, since 1938, many purchased with money from the fund that bears his name. 1 The museum also holds a number of paintings from his collection, including a panel portrait in brunaille of the Dutch classics scholar and infamous erotomaniac Hadriaan Beverland (1650-1716; fig. 1), notorious for his banishment from the Dutch Republic because of his scandalous writings. 2 The identification of the sitter is indisputable. Beverland's name is on the portrait and on prints reproducing the painting. This remarkable panel shows the eccentric libertine with a glass of wine and a pipe, sitting at a table with a prostitute -a confrontational likeness. Why did this young humanist broadcast this provocative image of himself? And the panel in the Rijksmuseum is not the only unusual portrait Beverland commissioned. In London -where he settled after he was banished -Beverland ordered a portrait print in which he is seen drawing the naked back of a sensual statue of Venus ( fig. 13). While most people in the seventeenth century put forward their best side in their portraits, Beverland presented himself < surround ed by attributes of a rather ambiguous nature. Why did he delibera tely push the moral boundaries in these portraits? And did he do this in all his portraits? In this article we analyse the Portrait of Hadriaan Bever land with a Prostitute, investigate what lay behind Beverland's extraordinary manner of self-promotion, and argue that the portrait was the starting point of a calculated campaign of portraits with which Beverland endeavoured to control his reputation.

Beverland and his Banishment
Hadriaan (also known as Adrian, Adriaan, Adriaen or Hadrianus) Beverland was born in Middelburg in 1650. 3 After finishing Latin school at the age of eighteen, he left Zeeland to study at the universities of Franeker, Leiden, Utrecht and Oxford. He read philosophy and literature and in 1677 gained a doc torate in law. His reputa tion as an extraor di narily intelligent and ambi tious student, with an incredible command of Latin and extensive know ledge of classical literature, brought him into contact with the most emi nent scholars of his day, among them Nicolaas Heinsius (1621-1681), Jacobus Gronovius (1645-1716) and Isaac Vossius (1618-1689). This group, which Bever land called the Initiati, constantly shared ideas and commented on one another's manuscripts. and his critical reading of the Bible were too provocative in the eyes of both religious and secular authorities in the Republic. Even the Initiati no longer wished to be associated with him and his arguments.
On 26 October 1679 Beverland was arrested in Leiden, where he had enrolled again as a student after obtaining his doctorate. He was locked up in the students' prison at the university, awaiting the verdict. When it came, the sentence pronounced by the Academic Tribunal of Leiden Univer sity on 25 November was harsh. He was expelled from the university and fined. His book was banned, he was compelled to surrender his notes for his as yet incomplete De Prostibulis Veterum and had to swear never to publish a scandalous treatise again. But the most severe punishment of all was that Beverland was banished from the provinces of Holland, Zeeland and West Friesland. 10 His reputation was in tatters. He was now a convicted immoral heretic, who had to watch his step even in the provinces in the Republic from which he had not been banished. After his imprisonment he sought refuge in Utrecht for a short time, but in March 1680 he emigrated to England.
In England, Beverland again managed to mix in eminent intellectual circles. He was received by celebrated collectors like Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) and Sir William Courten (1642-1702) and worked as book agent for the famous humanist Isaac Vossius (1618-1689). He was also in touch with Constantijn Huygens Jr (1628-1697), secretary to King William iii. Beverland's name appears several times in Huygens's diary, in which he kept a record of his daily meetings with courtiers and other London notables. 11 Beverland dealt in valuable books and curiosities for the virtuoso collectors in London, and also possessed a consider able collection of his own. His private holdings included a great many books, paintings, coins, At a very early stage, Beverland's research focused on a single subject: sexuality. The subject was still taboo in the 'tolerant' Dutch Republic, even in humanist scholarly circles. 4 As a true libertine, Beverland placed 'naturalness' and genuineness above restriction and hypocrisy. 5 In his studies he aimed to criticize his fellow humanist scholars' repressive attitude to sexuality, and the negative view of sexuality in contemporary Christian society. 6 He was convinced that sexual desire predominated in all people and in all eras, using a traditional philosophical approach to adduce the proof of his theory. With a rigorously critical eye, Beverland searched for obscene quotations (censored by his predeces sors) and for more veiled passages with layers of suggestive erotic meaning. He garnered these quotes from the classics and from more modern publications, historical and Christian writings. He wanted to present his finds in a threevolume corpus magnus, to be titled De Prostibulis Veterum (On the Prostitu tion of the Classics). He most probably began compiling the material for this book in the spring of 1678, but it was never published. 7 Beverland had decided to publish his planned chapter on lust and original sin separately. Three editions of his De Peccato Originali (On Original Sin) were published in 1678 and 1679. In this work he argued that the Bible story of Adam and Eve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden should be read as an allegory, not taken literally. 8 The first humans did not eat fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they had sexual intercourse for the first time. Beverland contended that sexual desire was the original sin with which God had burdened mankind for all eternity. 9 This book did not achieve the response he had hoped for. The combination of Beverland's perverse libertine image, his impious subject of study, his criticism of the work of generations of theologians and scholars,

The Scene Unravelled
The portrait ( fig. 1) shows the Middelburg-born classicist in a carefully staged setting. Several elements stand out, beginning with Beverland himself. The confident stu dent domi nates the left-hand side of the panel. With absolute self-assurance he relaxes in a chair, his challenging gaze directed unflinchingly at the viewer. Dressed in the very latest fashion, he wears a modish allonge wig in Louis xiv style, with large curls falling over the shoulders. The gleaming garment he wears is a 'Japanese robe' or 'banyan'. This casual housecoat (silk in this case, but also made in cotton and linen) -modelled on the original Japanese kimono -had been informal wear for men and students in the Republic and beyond since the first decades of the shells, drawings and prints, 12 but at times when his finances were at a low ebb he was obliged to part with large sections of his collec tions in order to make ends meet. The last decades of his life were marked by a mental decline. Beverland became paranoid. He no longer trusted any -one and wrote at length of his fear of murderous plots. 13 He published several of his paranoid flights of fancy before his death in 1716. 14 Attribution and Date of the Portrait Although the Portrait of Hadriaan Beverland with a Prostitute ( fig. 1) seventeenth century. 18 A century later, this oriental garment was still extremely popular among a specific group of students in Leiden, as we see from a ban imposed on the wearing of banyans to church during the centennial cele brations of the University of Leiden in 1725. 19 From 1675 onwards Beverland could certainly afford an expensive outfit like this, for he came into the estate of his deceased parents when he turned twenty-five. With the considerable sum of more than 2,100 pounds he lived an opulent student life. 20 In later notes for pamphlets in which Beverland looks back on his early years, we read that he already attached great importance to fine clothes before 1675, to the immense frustration of his guardians. Beverland proudly writes that he was always better dressed than his friends and fellow students. 21 To achieve this he had put his guardians to great expense. They had to come up with two hundred pounds to pay the eighteenyear-old Beverland's debts to tailors and other tradesmen. 22 On the table there is a glass of wine on a silver tray. In the seventeenth century, as they still are today, drinking and studying were inextricably linked. Drinking wine and beer was regarded as an essential part of a student's education. In the time-honoured tradition of the ancient Greek symposia, students and profes sors regularly came together to con verse, debate and drink. This ritual for expanding the mind was encouraged by an exemption from tax on alcohol for students and professors. 23 But there were also voices preaching moderation in publications examining the harmful consequences of excessive alcohol consumption. 24 No extravagant reports of Beverland's drinking habits have sur vived from his student days, but considering that he lived among stu dents and professors (whom he some times referred to in his letters as his 'drinking companions') we may safely assume that he enjoyed the odd glass now and again. It is only in corres- pon dence dating from after the month he spent in a cell that we read more often about his consumption of alcohol and drunkenness; some letters actually seem to have been written in a state of inebriation. 25 Beverland balances a long pipe between his fingers. There are countless images of smoking attributes and figures smoking in Golden Age still lifes and genre works. 26 Generally speaking, we more often see short pipes in the hands of coarse types, whereas long, slender pipes are used by smokers from better back grounds. 27 We very seldom see people smoking in portraits. Wealthy citizens and the upper classes evidently did not regard a pipe as a fitting attribute with which to be immortalized. 28 The only type of portrait in which we not infrequently encounter a pipe is the artist's portrait, with likenesses of often anonymous painters or self-portraits, and we have to interpret the action of smoking as a 'stimulus to the creative powers brought about by the use of tobacco'. 29 The rebellious libertine Beverland liked nothing better than being provocative and so he chose to be recorded for posterity holding a long, thinstemmed pipe.
Pipes and wine glasses often feature in late seventeenth-and eighteenthcentury genre scenes featuring students. In The Gambler ( fig. 3, formerly also known as The Foolhardy Student or The Jolly Drinker) by Jan van Mieris (1660-1690), a young man in expensive clothes holds up a long pipe. Before him stands a glass of wine and he gestures to wards the pack of cards and the dice on the table as he looks cheerfully at the viewer. 30 Although there are no academic attributes in view, Allard de la Court, son of the man who commissioned this panel, Pieter de la Court, described it thus: '1 foolhardy stu dent with 1 trictrac board and pipe &c … painted for my father, cost f 50.' 31 We also find a tipsy student with a glass of wine and a pipe in Ary de Vois's oeuvre. This extra vagantly clad Dissolute Student ( fig. 4) -who bears a striking resemblance to our young erotomaniac -sits in front of a book case and drapery that are very reminiscent of those in the background to the Portrait of Hadriaan Beverland with a Prostitute in the Rijksmuseum. In genre scenes like these, tobacco and wine symbolize fugitive pleasures, since the effect of these stimulants is always short-lived. But if we assume on the basis of these attri butes that De Vois's portrait of Beverland is simply a picture of a student, we do the painting an injustice.
The most curious element in the picture is the woman at Beverland's side. She is unmistakably a lady of easy virtue. 32  playfully beckons Beverland to come closer, as if she is inviting him to disappear with her behind the curtain draped in the background. She is a true temptress, like the women in windows in seventeenth-century genre prints and paintings. There is a nice visual parallel, for instance, with Woman at a Window by Thomas van der Wilt (1659-1733; fig. 5). 33 It is evident that the woman beside Beverland belongs to a more expensive class of prostitute than a whore who made her money on the streets. 34 We do not find prostitutes in any other early modern portrait. Her presence was a very radical choice. Like the pipe and the glass, she is an attribute that reveals something about Beverland. Her profession is an obvious allusion to the title of Beverland's ero to logical corpus, on which she rests her hand. Like a muse, she sits at the table by Beverland and inspires him in his erotic studies. 35 By presenting himself in a portrait as a smoking and drinking student with a prostitute by his side, Beverland was not only making fun of prevailing conventions in portraiture, he was also running counter to generally accepted notions of honour and scandal that were very important in the day-to-day life of the Republic. As the lawyer Simon van Leeuwen (1627-1682) put it: 'Nothing in life is more valuable than honour and the good opinion that others have of us.' 36 Honour and a good name were crucial to someone's social standing and tied up with personal social, economic and religious well-being. 37 When someone's honour was impugned by word or deed (for instance in a public quarrel or through the spreading of slanderous gossip), a case could be brought to obtain a formal apology and restore honour (an amende honorable). In towns and cities, district officers could pronounce a semi-official verdict to settle such affairs of honour. By having his portrait painted with a dissolute lightskirt, Beverland shattered the prevailing codes of honour. 38 His urge to provoke was evidently stronger than his desire to protect his reputation.
And yet there are details in the Portrait of Hadriaan Beverland with a Prostitute that lend our classicist something of a respectable air. When the portrait was painted, Beverland had not yet been prosecuted for his immoral writings. Still in high spirits, he was working on his major thesis on sexuality, which lies open on the table in the portrait. Beverland's name and the title de Prostibulis Veterum are conspicuous on the edge of the book. Rather prematurely, his erotic thesaurus is presented here as a finished book, but because of his criminal prosecution it was never actually published. His De Prostibulis Veterum is not the only book in the portrait, however. In the background is a well-filled bookcase, half concealed behind a curtain. Beverland's library, with a great many editions of classical authors and a Blaeu Atlas, was his pride and joy. 39 In the portrait the books represent Beverland's interest in the classics and humanist literature. Their presence puts the picture firmly into the tradition of the scholar's por trait. The Portrait of Anthonie van Leeuwenhoek by Jan Verkolje 1 (1650-1693) is a typical example ( fig. 6). The portrait shows the Delft physicist (famous among other things for his microscopy research into spermatozoids) sitting at a writing table with a compass and a globe. On the table, prominently displayed, is the deed of his admission as a member of the Royal Society in London. Attaining such an important professional milestone was the ideal occasion for a new portrait. In Bever land's portrait, however, the situation is quite different. Although he proudly parades his passion for his research into sexuality and his knowledge of world literature, at the time this por trait was painted he had not yet achie ved very much and had not published anything. The subject of his studies and the cal culated depiction of them were more over extraordinarily provocative.
Ary de Vois's Portrait of Hadriaan Beverland with a Prostitute finds an interesting middle way between a por trait of an irresponsible student and that of an accomplished scholar. It is an intriguing ego document by the ambitious young Beverland. In the light of his prosecution three years later, the portrait is at the same time an ironic example of the pride that comes before a fall.

Preliminary Study for a Frontispiece
The portrait of Beverland is De Vois's only known work painted as a brunaille -executed entirely in shades of brown with white highlights. Overall, there are very few portraits executed in monochrome like this one. In most cases, it is obvious that those that are have a dual function -as works of art in their own right on the one hand, and as preliminary studies for portrait prints on the other. Among the best known are the 'thirty seven pictures in grisaille done by Vandike after the life, of the most eminent men of his time, from which the plates were graven'. 40 These were preliminary studies for portrait etchings in Anthony van Dyck's large series known as the Iconography. Another well-known example is the self-portrait of Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627-1678; fig. 7   of a frontispiece, after all, is to pique readers' curiosity about the content of the book. His contemporaries' scholarly publications usually opened with a histori cal scene, an allegory or a portrait of the author. 42 Beverland's choice of a portrait print with appropriate attributes is consequently conventional, but the addition of the prostitute makes it highly provocative. Although we also encounter ladies of easy virtue on the frontispieces of late seventeenthcentury pornographic novels, Bever land's portrait is an order of magnitude more provocative. A good example is the print on the title page of 't Amsterdamsch Hoerdom of 1681 ( fig. 9). Here prostitution is depicted as the devil's work. It shows two men, chained by a devil, who crawl through the dust at a prostitute's feet. A second devil stands arm in arm with the lightskirt and together they stand on the necks of the two grovelling men. 43 Although there is a prostitute in this scene, it conveys a very strong moral. There is no moralizing element whats oever in Beverland's portrait. Beverland manifestly wanted to push the bounda ries and break taboos not just with the content of his erotological corpus but with his frontispiece, too.
Regrettably it never reached that stage, so we can only speculate about the influence Beverland's De Prostibulis Veterum and his remarkable author's portrait might have had.

Self-Promotion with Portraits
After this first portrait, Beverland commissioned at least four more. Care fully selected attributes give each one a character of its own, and each presents a different side of Beverland -a side he wanted to show off at that moment.

A Serious Scholar
His unconventional area of study not withstanding, Beverland had real acade m ic ambitions. The portrait engraving by Johannes Willemsz Munnickhuysen referred to above ( fig. 2) shows a serious Beverland, entirely in line with other seventeenthcentury portrait prints of authors and scholars. The print simply reproduces Beverland's bust from De Vois's painting. All the suggestive attributes have been omitted. What we do still see is his voluminous periwig and a detail of his banyan. Viewers unfamiliar with Beverland's past or De Vois's original portrait would not have suspected that the serious man in this portrait had a reputation as an 'arch exponent of the very vilest depravities'. 44 It is striking that Beverland's face is exactly the same size in the engra ving and the painting. The copy is literally one-to-one. This means that Munnickhuysen had access to the panel by De Vois, suggesting that Beverland most probably commissioned the engraving himself. There is no information, however, about precisely where and when the print was made. In 1672 Munnickhuysen went to London with his teacher Abraham Blooteling (1634-1690). 45 The contract Munnickhuysen's mother had had drawn up for this apprenticeship ran for three years. During this period Blooteling would teach her son the tricks of the trade and provide board and lodging, and see to the passage home. 46 A document dated 1701 is the earliest evidence of Munnickhuysen's return to Amsterdam. 47 We do not know exactly when he came back. If he returned early, he must have engraved Beverland's portrait before the latter left for England, but if Munnickhuysen remained in London after his contract came to an end, he could have made Beverland's portrait there. 48 Beverland's personal circumstances before his arrest were obviously rather different from the position he subsequently found himself in in England. Since we do not know exactly where and when the print was made, we can only guess at what its specific function might have been.
The fairly standard oval frame with laurel leaves and berries appears elsewhere in Munnickhuysen's oeuvre. Other prestigious authors' portraits he made, like the ones of Jan de Wys (fl. 1680) and Petrus Suerendonck (c. 1622/33-1696), are contained in similar decorative borders and are part of a series. 49 However, Beverland is not an obvious figure to feature in a series of notables. It would certainly not have been normal practice to add a portrait to a canon series on one's own initiative. Tellingly, though, none of the other portrait prints Munnickhuysen made are exactly the same size as his likeness of the banished erotomaniac. In other words, Beverland's picture was probably not part of a series. A function as a stand-alone portrait of an author is more credible. Portrait prints of writers were a popular product in the seventeenth century. Given their standard size, the prints could easily be added to a book, either by the publisher or by the reader himself. In terms of its dimensions, Beverland's portrait fits in a quarto binding, but there is no known volume of Beverland's work to which the portrait has been added.

A Bad Boy in London
Some ten years after Ary de Vois painted his portrait of Beverland, the London printmaker and publisher Isaac Beckett (c. 1653-1688) made a mezzotint after the controversial painting ( fig. 10). Beverland probably commissioned it himself and still had the painting in his possession. 50 The mezzotint reproduces the whole of the painting in mirror image; the only difference is that the title de Prostibulis Veterum has vanished from the edge of the book. Strangely, Beverland's name does not appear on any of the four known states of Beckett's print, although the title Peccatum Originale is printed in the bottom margin of the third state. Beverland deliberately thrust his libertine bad boy image under the world's nose again. But why? Might he have had a reissue of his Peccatum Originale in mind? It seems more likely to have been a shrewd attempt to raise his profile. The absence of his name could imply that Beverland himself had commissioned a small run of the portrait print so that he could distribute it -as a sort of visiting card -among his connections. Had the making of the print been initiated by Beckett with a view to a wide distribu tion, Beverland's name would certainly have graced the lower margin. In the estate inventories of collectors among Beverland's contemporaries, Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), Alexander Browne (d. 1706) and William Courten (1642-1702) among them, portrait prints of Beverland were clearly listed with his name. 51 The owners of these prints (particular ly given the addition of the title Peccatum Originale) would have had absolutely no doubt about the identity of the sitter.
A fascinating twist is that in the much later fourth state of this print -issued by the London publisher and print dealer Samuel Lyne (fl. 1741-48), who got hold of the plate after Beckett -the inscription has been filled in. The title  small laurel wreath in his hands. He dangles the wreath over the head of a monkey, which offers him a crumpled page it has just torn out of a book. In seventeenth-century painting, monkeys usually symbolized sensuality and lewdness, and this one alludes to both the erotic poems and the disso lute lifestyle of this famous libertine cour tier. The portrait of Beverland with a prostitute could easily be recycled as a portrait of this curly-wigged English rake. Deliberately altering the identity of the subject of a portrait was not that uncommon, and it was generally prompted by the profit motive. 52 It is reasonable to think that in England the demand for a portrait of this English pornographer would be greater than for a portrait of the relatively obscure Beverland. Selling a portrait of the earl would generate more profit for Lyne than a portrait of Beverland. A mezzotint by printmaker Pieter  Schenck i (1660-1711; fig. 12), which closely follows the composition of the Portrait of Hadriaan Beverland with a Prostitute, is also interesting. With the exception of Schenck's own name and the words Cum Privilegio, the bottom margin of the print is empty. 53 Schenck appears to have based his work on Beckett's mezzotint rather than the painting. In both prints the drapery in the background has been enlivened with a floral pattern and the women, in particular, bear a strong resemblance, but Schenck has also very specifically altered a number of details in the composition. He has, for instance, rendered Beverland's features unrecognizable. His roguish look and snub nose have been transformed, with deeper wrinkles, different eyes and a large nose. Schenck's print is not a portrait of Beverland, it is a generic image of an anonymous bon viveur. The pipe has been replaced with a tastevin, a small, shallow silver saucer that was used to judge the clarity and colour of wine. In his other hand, which was previously empty, the man holds a pipette -another device used in wine tasting. 54

A Connoisseur of Antiquities
His portraits with a prostitute by De Vois and Beckett are not the only startling pieces Beverland commis sioned. Around 1687 he got Isaac Beckett to make his likeness in mezzotint for the second time ( fig. 13), this time after a lost preliminary study by Simon du Bois (c. 1632-1706). 55 The print shows Beverland surrounded by Egyptian obelisks, pyramids and sphinxes. Among the ancient ruins stands a single statue of Greek origin: a sensual image of the goddess Venus. 56 Beverland himself perches on a frag ment of an ancient temple and looks amiably over his shoulder at the viewer. The attitude of his body and the tablet in his hands sug gest that he is drawing the goddess of love. An artist amidst ancient ruins and monuments was a popular motif in printmaking (fig. 14). The fact that Beverland very delibera tely positioned himself behind the statue and is studying the goddess's nude posterior gives this portrait a provocative twist not found in other images of artists working among ruins. It underlines Beverland's image as a provocateur, libertine and eroto maniac.
The singular composition follows that of the frontispiece of Lorenzo Pignoria's Mensa Isiaca of 1669, engraved by Abraham Blooteling (1634-1690; fig. 15). 57 In his book Pignoria (1571-1631) presents his interpretation of the Mensa Isiaca (also called the Bembine Tablet), a Roman altar table with decorations in Egyptian style. 58 He suggested that the images on the tablet represent an Egyptian sacrificial rite. This was certainly the sort of thing that fasci nated Beverland. In his own research he often focused on sexual sacrificial rituals in Antiquity. In two manuscripts written by Beverland, we find evidence that he owned a copy of Pignoria's  book. As well as handwritten notes the manuscripts also contain prints that have been cut out and unusual print collages. 59 Among the many cut-outs -chiefly nude gods and nymphswe find two silhouetted details that Beverland cut out of the frontispiece of the Mensa Isiaca: Lorenzo Pignoria drawing and an Egyptian sculpture group. 60 It can hardly be a coincidence that it was these exact details that Beverland got Beckett to modify in his portrait print.
The inscription beneath the image describes Beverland as 'a critic and judge of medals, insects, shells, pictures and rare books'. Beverland wanted this portrait to stress his extensive knowledge of Antiquity. He worked as an intermediary for several London collec tors, helping them to acquire rare books, prints and antiquities. He most probably distributed this portrait print as a sort of business card in London collectors' circles -in which collecting portraits was extremely popular -in the hope of attracting new clients. 61 The scholarly virtuosi among them would have recognized and appreciated the link between Beverland's portrait and Pignoria's frontispiece.

A Reformed Scholar
Isaac Vossius, Beverland's principal mainstay in London, died in 1689. His stepfather, Bernard de Gomme, with whom he had a very close bond, had died a few years earlier. Beverland felt himself alone in a foreign country. Homesick, he thought more and more often about his heyday as a student in the Republic and realized 'that if he ever wanted to return to his fatherland, he had to publicly and convincingly revoke his early endeavours'. 62 But his self-created and consolidated bad boy reputation was a serious obstacle. If he was ever to have a chance of a pardon, he had to cultivate a more virtuous, honourable image, and he started to take the first steps on his road to reform. In 1689 Beverland conse quently em barked on a new treatise, titled De Fornicatione Cavenda Admonitio (Warning About Fornication Which Should Be Avoided), in which he apologized for his earlier immoral works. 63  Beverland acted as intermediary in a battle for this collection between the Bodleian Library in Oxford and Leiden Univer sity Library and managed to wangle himself a pardon on the strength of it. He was free to return to the Republic, but he never did.
In 1689, the year of his dramatic volte face, Beverland had a new por trait painted ( fig. 16). This time he went to Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646-1723), the leading portrait painter in England at that time. Kneller painted Beverland as a humble man, without his luxuriant wig, a book in his hand. With a modest but friendly smile, he looks at the viewer. The portrait stands in stark contrast to all the earlier por traits. It shows Beverland as the refor med scholar he wanted the outside world to see; no longer presenting himself as the dissolute bad boy, surrounded by scantily clad women or nude statues. 66 Whether or not his reformation was feigned, it had the desired effect. In the eighteenth century his portrait entered the collection of the Bodleian Library in Oxford, where it still hangs, sur rounded by portraits of other famous authors and scholars. 67

In Conclusion
The Portrait of Hadriaan Beverland with a Prostitute in the Rijksmuseum can rightly be regarded as one of the most remarkable portraits made in the seventeenth century. A sitter, smoking, with a prostitute at his side is a provocative image, but in Beverland's case a particularly telling one. Many viewers would have relished this audacious scene in an age of repression of sexuality in word and image. On the one hand we can link the portrait to the end of Beverland's academic career and his banishment. On the other, it was the starting point for a string of commis-sioned portraits for self-promotion orchestrated by Beverland himself. Each of his successive portraits was made with a specific goal in mind -to boost Beverland's image. Like a true pr man, he used his portraits (particularly his portrait prints) as tools for controlling his image. Each one shines the spotlight on a different aspect of his personality. Whether the image they presented was genuine, or sometimes disingenuous, is not always obvious. What does become clear is that when Beverland commissioned his portraits there was always something he wanted to achieve. The deliberately provocative portraits were designed to attract attention to him and his publications, and bring him contacts and clients. He had his respectable portraits made in order to restore his reputation. The large number of portraits of himself that Beverland commissioned is virtually unequalled in the Golden Age and attests to an extraordinarily self-assured expression of identity. The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam owns one of the most curious portraits ever made in the seventeenth century -the likeness of the Dutch classical scholar and notorious erotomaniac Hadriaan Beverland (1650-1716), who was banished from the Dutch Republic in 1679 because of his scandalous publications. In the portrait -a brunaille -the libertine rake sits at a table with a prostitute; a provocative scene. Why did this young humanist promote such a confrontational image of himself? In this article the author analyses the portrait and explores Beverland's motives for his remarkable manner of self-promotion, going on to argue that it was the starting point for a calculated campaign of portraits. Over the years Beverland commis sioned at least four more portraits of himself, including one in which he is shown drawing the naked back of a statue of Venus. Each of his portraits was conceived with a view to giving his changeable reputation a push in the right direction. They attest to a remarkable and extraordinarily self-assured expression of identity seldom encountered in seventeenth-century portraiture.