Portrait Of A Man With A White Beard, Dutch School, Circa 1700

Oil on canvas depicting a bearded man wearing an oriental-style cap adorned with feathers and golden pompoms, holding a pair of metal-framed glasses in his hand. The serene and concentrated expression of the figure, as well as the delicate chiaroscuro and the richness of the textures (beard, velvet, plume), bear witness to the painter's refined expertise.
This portrait is in the tradition of the Dutch tronies of the Golden Age - these studies of faces in costume, popular in the circle of Rembrandt and his students (Ferdinand Bol, Gerrit Dou, Jan Lievens). The gesture of holding glasses evokes wisdom, reflection or knowledge, in a humanist vein specific to this period.

Flemish or Dutch School, Late 17th – Early 18th Century Oil on canvas in very good general condition, fine cracks from use, canvas previously relined.