Man Looking through a Window

Samuel van Hoogstraten was active as a painter in several different genres, and also an engraver and writer. In his treatise of 1678 he explained the importance of illusionism in painting and the need for perspective in the fine arts. He himself frequently practiced these skills and became one of the most important seventeenth-century creators of trompe-l’oeil paintings and perspective boxes. The eye-fooling artistry of trompe-l’oeil was extremely popular at the courts of Europe in the seventeenth century. The present painting was specially made for the emperor Ferdinand III during Van Hoogstraten’s four-year stay in Vienna.