PORTRAIT OF A BEAUTY IN A BLUE DRESS - ATTRIBUTED TO CHARLES JERVAS (1675 - 1739)Fine, and sensitively rendered early 18th century English portrait of a beauty in a blue dress attributed to Charles Jervas (c.1675 - 1739). The elegant dark haired sitter is pictured three half-length within an oval cartouche, with a tree filled landscape and sunset background behind her. The as yet unknown beauty is expensively dressed in the high status and fashionable brightly coloured clothing of the period, namely deep blue silk or velvet dress over a white chemise, accentuated by a warm silk ribbon (yellow/gold). Jervas was famous (and sometimes criticised by contemporaries) for his preoccupation with silk and satin textures. Happily by popularising portraying aristocratic women in loose, casual, garments as opposed to stiff court dress, his portraits often have the poetic, and casual elegance that we see here. Our sitter is every inch the baroque beauty with her soft and luminous skin...