Gonzales Coques, 'Portrait of a Man', about 1670

The languid brown eyes of a young man gaze out at us, his look faintly quizzical. But who is he? His long hair waves softly about his neck, the shadow of a moustache dusts his upper lip, a wisp of a curl brushes a wide brow, and his full mouth pouts a little, adding to the uncertainty of his expression.

The portrait is a miniature, just over 16 by 12.2 cm. Its delicate oval shape is contained in a heavy, hexagonal Netherlandish frame, black stippled with red. In the days before photography, miniature portraits were made of wealthy people for families, friends or for diplomatic contacts. They were often copies of larger portraits, but sometimes there was just one made, as in this case. The pose – the torso turned to the side and the face looking back at the viewer – originates with Raphael, and was taken up by Van Dyck. Coques admired and aspired to emulate him, becoming known as ‘The Little Van Dyck’.

There are more aspects about the image itself that raise questions. Because of the ribbons fluttering around the arm facing us, made fashionable by Louis XIV, it is difficult to tell what that arm is doing. Does the young man have his hand on his hip, his elbow bent; is his arm hanging by his side? The blue fabric at his neck is a cravat string – with no cravat. To complement this jacket a flat, fan-shaped cravat would be the elegant choice, but it may be that this picture was painted when the cravat was falling out of fashion (and becoming a forerunner to the ties we know today).

Who was this person, rich and eminent enough to have had a likeness taken, yet whose name has been lost? It’s likely that we shall never know. There isn‘t enough of a trail to follow. What little there is ends in 1915, it appears.

When the portrait came to the National Gallery in 1910, it had a label on the back stating that the young man was Charles Mordaunt, 3rd Earl of Monmouth. By the time a new catalogue was published in 1915, this attribution had been discounted. He was dubbed with the title ’Unknown‘, and there he stays. The portrait is neither signed nor dated, but the style and brushwork are Coques’s. The date – about 1670 – can be estimated by the man’s glamorous, white satin jacket. This fashion came a year or two earlier and stayed popular for a long time – so it might be later than 1670 but it can’t be much before.

Was he English? There must have been some reason for the original attribution, long since lost. Coques worked mainly in Antwerp though was employed by several of the European courts. The young man might have come across him on the Grand Tour – an educational tour of the continent for young aristocrats – or it’s thought that Coques may have been in England around 1640, and might have made useful contacts then.