Portrait of a Gentleman C.1680: Circle of John Michael Wright.

Oil on canvas in a period frame. (damaged areas to frame).

This insightful portrait is typical of Wright's manner; a realistic and penetrating image of the sitter who, in a relaxed pose, looks out at us with an expression of determination and confidence.

JOHN MICHAEL WRIGHT (May 1617 - July 1694) Described variously as English and Scottish, Wright trained in Edinburgh under the Scots painter George Jamesone, and acquired a considerable reputation as an artist and scholar during a long sojourn in Rome. There he was admitted to the Accademia di San Luca. He took up permanent residence in England from 1656, and served as Court Painter before and after the English Restoration. A convert to Roman Catholicism, he was a favourite of the restored Stuart court, a client of both Charles II and James II. In the final years of the Stuart monarchy he returned to Rome.

Wright is currently rated as one of the leading indigenous British painters of his generation, largely for the distinctive realism in his portraiture. Perhaps due to the unusually cosmopolitan nature of his experience, he was favoured by patrons at the highest level of society in an age in which foreign artists were usually preferred. Wright's paintings of royalty and aristocracy are included amongst the collections of many leading galleries today.

SIZE: 43.5 x 36.5 inches framed.

PROVENANCE: From the Collection of Robin Ian Evelyn Stuart de la Lanne-Mirrlees (Grinnel-Milne), Comte de la Lanne-Mirrlees, titular Prince of Incoronata, Scottish Feudal Baron of Inchdrewer and Laird of Bernera (1925-2012).

Robin Ian Evelyn Grinnell-Milne was born on January 13 1925, son of Duncan Grinnell-Milne, a much-decorated First World War fighter pilot who was shot down and taken prisoner, only to escape and rejoin his squadron, and whose memoirs, An Escaper’s Log, are considered a classic account of derring-do.

Robin’s godfather was the 11th Duke of Argyll. His parents divorced in 1927 and his mother subsequently married Major General William Mirrlees. In recognition of this, and of his mother’s aristocratic Basque forebears, he later changed his name to Robin de la Lanne-Mirrlees. Hope Mirrlees, the writer of fantasy fiction, was his step-aunt.

In 1960, when Fleming was researching the heraldic background for the book, 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service', Mirrlees was Rouge Dragon Pursuivant at the College of Heralds. After agreeing to collaborate with Fleming, he was featured in the novel under the heraldic pseudonym Sable Basilisk . The association was commemorated in a privately produced book, Sable Basilisk, which contained notes and correspondence between Mirrlees and Fleming from their spell of joint research.

Robin was married, very briefly, to a former nurse. From a long relationship with Duchess Margarethe of Wurttemberg, a granddaughter of Tsar Ferdinand I of Bulgaria, he had a son, Patrick Grinnell-Milne de la Lanne-Mirlees, who in 2006 became the mayor of Delmenhorst in Lower Saxony.