title: “Ratio Quique Reddenda” — what did Sweerts mean?
metadata.name: dc.contributor.author
metadata.value: Barysheva, Olga I.
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.contributor.author
metadata.value: Korolev, Alexander V.
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.contributor.author
metadata.value: Pozdnev, Michael M.
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.date.accessioned
metadata.value: 2024-12-03T17:40:58Z
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.date.available
metadata.value: 2024-12-03T17:40:58Z
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.date.issued
metadata.value: 2024-03
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.identifier.citation
metadata.value: Barysheva O. I., Korolev A. V., Pozdnev M. M. “Ratio Quique Reddenda” — what did Sweerts mean? Philologia Classica 2024, 19 (1), 146–163. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu20.2024.110
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.identifier.other
metadata.value: https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu20.2024.110
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.identifier.uri
metadata.value: http://hdl.handle.net/11701/48096
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.description.abstract
metadata.value: The Portrait of a Young Man, or Self-Portrait, by Michael Sweerts, remains poorly studied,
  although this is one of the two known works, dated by the master himself, and dated 1656, a
  pivotal year in his biography. Beside the date the sheet pinned to the green tablecloth displays
  the signature and the moralizing motto: Ratio Quique [sic!] Reddenda. Titled as “The Bankrupt”
  the painting appeared in the collection of I. I. Shuvalov and with this apparently false
  title went first to the St Petersburg Academy of Arts, then to the Hermitage. The reading of it
  as belonging to the vanitas genre also leads away from the point. That the Young Man is not
  a frivolous embezzler, but a calculating businessman follows from parallels in Flemish and
  Dutch art. Neither is he a “melancholic”, however similar his posture may be to many of them.
  The key to Sweerts’ message is the Latin pinacogram, of which each word is capitalized and
  one is spelled in a somewhat extravagant manner (dat. quique). Rationem reddere evokes associations
  with the Gospel debt parables. Flemish painters had turned to this subject already
  in the early 16th century; Van Hemessen’s depiction of the Unforgiving Slave is likely to be one
  of Sweerts’ direct sources. The parallelism of earthly and heavenly “banking” is emphasized
  in Th. Halle’s engraving Redde rationem being part of Veridicus Christianus by J. David. The
  engraving and the portrait have a number of details in common, and the relative comment
  abounds in references to the debt parables. The Young Banker of the Hermitage portrait puts
  aside his counting and muses that the same debit-credit law operates in the other world, and
  that the list of debtors includes every one of us: to get that message across was so important
  to the fanatically catholic Sweerts that he styled the Latin inscription as the title of this list.
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.description.sponsorship
metadata.value: The present study is carried out within the framework of an RSF (Russian Science Foundation)
  project no. 23-28-00142, “Latin and Greek inscriptions on the Hermitage paintings”.
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.language.iso
metadata.value: en
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.publisher
metadata.value: St Petersburg State University
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.relation.ispartofseries
metadata.value: Philologia Classica;Volume 19; Issue 1
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: Sweerts
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: Portrait of a Young Man
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: Latin pinacograms
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.title
metadata.value: “Ratio Quique Reddenda” — what did Sweerts mean?
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.type
metadata.value: Article
metadata.lang: en_GB
resources.filename: 10.pdf
resources.url: https://dspace.spbu.ru/bitstream/11701/48096/1/10.pdf
resources.format: Adobe PDF
resources.size: 5,96 MB