Probably by Ignacio de Leon y Escosura, 'A Man in 17th-Century Spanish Costume', 1850-90
| Full title | A Man in 17th-Century Spanish Costume |
|---|---|
| Artist | Probably by Ignacio de Leon y Escosura |
| Artist dates | 1834 - 1901 |
| Date made | 1850-90 |
| Medium and support | oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 92.7 × 69.9 cm |
| Acquisition credit | Presented by Charles Henry Crompton-Roberts, 1890 |
| Inventory number | NG1308 |
| Location | Not on display |
| Collection | Main Collection |
An unidentified man wearing fine seventeenth-century Spanish costume stands in a roughly sketched interior. His wealth is emphasised by the silver embroidery on his jacket, the fanciful slashed sleeves and the broad-brimmed hat lined with white feathers. He rests his arm on a chair and looks out at us. Underneath the thick curtain beside him it is just possible to make out the outlines of flowers. These belong to an earlier painting – a still life – and indicate that the artist of the painting reused an old canvas, probably dating from the seventeenth or eighteenth century.
This is a nineteenth-century imitation attributed to León y Escosura of a seventeenth-century painting. It is based on a life-size picture of a dwarf in the manner of Velázquez which is in the Prado, Madrid.
An unidentified man wearing fine seventeenth-century Spanish costume stands in a roughly sketched interior. His wealth is emphasised by the silver embroidery on his jacket, the fanciful slashed sleeves and the broad-brimmed hat lined with white feathers. He rests his arm on a chair and looks out at us. Underneath the thick curtain beside him it is possible to just make out the outlines of flowers. These belong to an earlier painting – a still life – and indicate that the artist reused an old canvas, probably dating from the seventeenth or eighteenth century.
When the portrait was presented to the National Gallery, it was attributed to Velázquez’s follower Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo. A letter received several years later said that the nineteenth-century Spanish artist Ignacio de León y Escosura claimed to have painted the portrait. León often copied old masters at the Museo del Prado in Madrid, and this portrait is a pastiche derived from a painting there: Portrait of a Dwarf with a Dog (1645) attributed to Velázquez and his workshop.
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