Portrait of Clara Magdalena Dedel (1727-1778) (copy)

Clara Magdalena Dedel (1727–1778) came from the prominent Dutch regent family Dedel, whose members held significant positions in Amsterdam's civic administration throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This 1756 copy, now in the Amsterdam Museum, was made after an original—possibly a Liotard original, a self-portrait, or another artist's work—and its presence in an Amsterdam collection appropriate to the Dedel family's civic prominence. The Amsterdam Museum focuses on the history and culture of Amsterdam as a city, and the portrait functions as a historical document of a patrician woman within the civic elite. Copies were made for various reasons: as diplomatic gifts, as records for family members living at a distance, or as replacements when originals moved away from family control through inheritance or sale. The word 'copy' in the title indicates this was known from the outset to be a replica rather than an original.

A copy after another work requires the copyist to subordinate their own preferences to the original's composition, lighting, and handling. If Liotard himself made this copy, it offers evidence of his approach to self-replication; if made by another hand after a Liotard original, it provides a secondary record of his lost or inaccessible composition.