Verso, a fragmentary handwritten label. (see Image 5).
The point is clearly that this young man is not merely a fashionably dressed aristocrat but a man of culture and learning.
This type of portrait was usually on a larger scale e.g. 50 x 40 inches; the fact that this is 'in small' suggests that it was for the 'cabinet'...the intimate room for favoured possessions that was so fashionable during the Baroque period. Perhaps painted for a wife or lover?
SIZE: 30 x 26.5 inches inc. frame.
PROVENANCE: Collection of a Fellow of a Cambridge college.
Roy and nadine precious: specialists in portraiture from the 16th to the 20th century. Established in 1972.
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Portrait of a Nobleman 1696, by Joseph-guillaume Du Plessis (Flanders 1653-1715 Marseille)
