Portrait of a Man in a Turban
Panel, enlarged on two sides by 4 cm
60x43 inch
Old restorations, departures from cracks and small losses
On the back: Old label from the Agnew and sons gallery in London, in
1966.
Provenance: Agnew Gallery in London; Acquired by Sir Alfred Chester Beatty, great collector and major donor to the British Museum and Dublin museums.
Bibliography: Werner Sumowski, Gemalde der Rembrandt-Schuler. VI: Corrigenda u. Addendum 2, PVA editions, 1983, p. 3691, n°2189 (with dimensional error), repro.p.3773
Our painting takes up the portraits of Orientals wearing imposing turbans adorned with goldsmithery that Rembrandt and his pupils developed from the 1630s (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1632; Munich, Alte Pinakothek, 1633; Washington, National Gallery of Art, 1635).
A student of Rembrandt and master of Bisschop, Ferdinand Bol also represented figures wearing this exotic clothing accessory ten years later (Boston, Museum of Art, 1644, Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, ca. 1650).
They are biblical old men and philosophers, whereas here our model is younger. These subjects of imaginary Persian or Ottoman princes were popular because of the new contacts of the Batavian Republic with its colonies, through the Compagnie des Indes. Variations on 'tronies', a term meaning 'face' in Old Dutch, these expression studies of a half-length character blend a portrait based on a realistic true likeness, which breathes life into the sitter, and the depiction of a stereotype, here oriental.
Attributed to Gerrit Willemsz Horst in the XNUMXth century, this panel was returned to Bisschop by Sumoski by comparison with signed paintings, for example the one in a private collection in New York (op. cit. )
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