Roy Precious - Antiques & Fine Art has dated this piece to the Before 1700 period.
The young lady looks out at the viewer with a thoughtful expression, typical of Soest's work.
Vertue thought that, unlike Lely, he refused to flatter his female sitters into a fashionable sameness. Waterhouse thought him to be perhaps the most sensitive of Lely's rivals. John Riley was a pupil.
GERARD SOEST (Zoust)(c.1600 - 1681), portrait-painter, is usually stated to have been born in Westphalia. It is more probable that he was, like Sir Peter Lely, a native of Soest, near Utrecht, as his portraits have some affinity to those of the Utrecht school. He appears to have been born early in the century, but nothing is known of him until 1656, when he came to London, already in some repute as a painter, and quickly obtained employment with the nobility and gentry after the Restoration. His portraits are carefully and strongly painted, the character of the sitter being well preserved, but his somewhat uncompromising style was tempered by a study of the works of Vandyck in order to suit the English taste.
SIZE:31 x 25 inches inc. frame.
PROVENANCE: Private Collection, Dorset.
Roy Precious - Antiques & Fine Art has dated this piece to the Before 1700 period.
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Portrait of a Young Lady C. 1660: Attributed to Gerard Soest.
