Fine 18th century portrait head of a gentleman by Michael Dahl (1659-1743) Charcoal and and white chalk heightened on grey paper.Born in Sweden in 1659 Michael Dahl first visited England in1682 to assess patronage opportunities created by the death of Sir Peter Lely. After several years of travel in France and Italy he finally settled in London in 1689 where he worked in the studio of Sir Godfrey Kneller and developed a portrait style influenced by his master. In fact Dahl soon became Kneller''s chief rival and gained the patronage of Prince George of Denmark and his wife Princess Anne. His studio practice boomed and he appears to have become the favoured portraitist in London at the time. Dahl seems to have adopted from Kneller the practice of making head studies in order to fix the likeness of a sitter for their final portrait., and both artists produced these drawings in chalks on blue or grey paper. Until 1973 no drawings were firmly attributed to Dahl but an article in ''Master Drawings'' by J. Douglas Stewart argued that certain sketches previously thought to be by Kneller were actually part of a larger group he attributed to Dahl himself. This has enabled a body of work to emerge and made it possible to attribute a number of other similar studies to Dahl, including the softly toned drawings of a gentleman and a lady presented here.Kneller�s drawings have more dramatic contrasts of light and shade, the execution is often more schematic and there is a bolder line with a tendency to long, baroque curves in defining the sitter�s hair. Dahl''s draftsmanship is more restrained and carefully executed and the modelling of both the works seen here is achieved with short hatching strokes and areas of softer denser shading with highlights in white chalk, and characterisation, distinguish them from drawings by Sir Godfrey Kneller. Stewart captures the essential quality of Dahl�s drawings: �It is interesting to note how similar Dahl�s drawing style is to...