Gerrit van Honthorst

Private collection, Glendoune, Ayrshire, Scotland;

Anonymous sale, Edinburgh, Lyon & Turnbull, 29 May 2008, lot 22 (as Attributed to Cornelius Johnson);

With Tomasso Brothers, Leeds;

With Johnny van Haeften, 2009;

Thence acquired by the present collector.

Gerrit van Honthorst, who had built his early reputation on Caravaggesque genre and nocturnal scenes, increasingly turned to portraiture in the 1630s and 1640s, securing commissions from an elite clientele in Utrecht and The Hague. The present work is notable for its careful rendering of textures, most evident in the slashed satin doublet and crisp white linen collar. Indeed, the man’s neckwear–a plain white linen band with tasseled strings tied beneath the chin–dates this work to the mid-1640s, during which time this style replaced the broad lace collar popular in earlier decades.