This tradition did not disappear in the 18th century. There was a strong moralizing tone to these pieces, which often included symbolic elements from vanitas paintings. To some sense idealized, they nonetheless emphasized the artist as laborer. In the 17th-century, these paintings, such as this example by Edward Collier, often portrayed the artist in the studio. However, there is a smaller body of work, which emerges from the Dutch genre painting tradition. This is achieved through a series of conventions found in elite portraiture from the period. Among paintings and prints which portray artists, the overwhelming majority emphasize their gentlemanly status. Self representation was an important mode for late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century artists to work out the boundaries between labor and leisure.
