Circle of
JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID

(French, 18th Century)

Portrait of a Gentleman

Oil on canvas

17 ⅛ x 13 ¾ inches (43.5 x 34.9 cm)

Provenance:   

Private Collection, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Exhibited: 

“Art of Collecting,” Flint Institute of Art, Flint, Michigan, 23 November 2018 – 6 January 2019.

This vibrant portrait of young man was traditionally considered a work by Jacques-Louis David, whose style it recalls, but to whom it cannot be convincingly attributed.  Rather, it would appear to be by a painter in his immediate following—an artist likely working in France in the first decade of the nineteenth century. Several names have been proposed as the portrait’s author: François Gérard, Louis Hersent, Anne-Louis Girodet (Fig. 1), Theodore Gericault, and Jean-Baptiste Wicar, among others. Some have thought the artist Italian, and have proposed Andrea Appiani, Gaspare Landi, and Giuseppe Bossi (Fig. 2). The range of attribution proposals reflects both the quality of the portrait and the international nature of the neo-classical movement. 

While the painter of this compelling portrait remains to be determined, the personality of the sitter, who engages directly with the viewer, seems frankly revealed.  His fashionable attire—a tightly wound cravat over a white shirt, with a light brown waistcoat, topped by blue-grey coat (compare with the portrait by Girodet)—was very much the standard style of the first decades of the century, but is here animated and seemingly in motion, an appropriate compliment to the sensitive rendering of the sitter’s features, with his tussled hair, piercing eyes, and ruddy cheeks.