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Notes
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This is one of five paintings intended to hang together, each of which denotes one of the five senses – a common theme for painting in the Low Countries in the seventeenth century. In each of these paintings Gonzales Coques has used a traditional activity to represent the relevant sense. Here, Touch is depicted as a man with his sleeve rolled back letting blood from his arm, a procedure which was believed to help cure or prevent some medical conditions. Blood was probably associated with the sense of touch because, like feeling, it permeates the whole body. By contrast, the receptors for the other four senses are located only on the head. This may also be a real portrait. We don’t know who it is, but as three of the other paintings in the series are artists, he may be one too.
Title
Touch
Date
before 1661
Medium
Oil on oak
Measurements
H 25.1 x W 19.4 cm
Accession number
NG1116
Acquisition method
Bought, 1882
Work type
Painting