An Unknown Gentleman, possibly a Venetian, but formerly called Robert Hopton
Italian (Venetian) School
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1620
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1230 x 950 mm
Place of origin
Venice
Order this imageCollection
Petworth House and Park, West Sussex
NT 486804
Caption
The sitter was first identified as Robert Hopton in the 1785 list of paintings at Petworth. However, his true identity remains uncertain. A portrait evidently by the same Venetian hand, of a very similar-looking man in a very similar setting, but with an hourglass instead of a book on the table, and a different canal view seen through the left hand opening was sold at Phillips (13 April 1999, lot 86), as by the Studio of Domenico Tintoretto. It was also curiously inscribed as an English sitter: Sr John Finett / Master of Ceremonies / to King James ye 1st.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, An Unknown Gentleman possibly a Venetian, but formerly called Robert Hopton, Italian (Venetian) School, early 17th century. A three-quarter-length portrait, of a gentleman, seated, three-quarters left in a chair with his right hand on a table by an open book and wearing a black robe and a fur stole; behind his head are two big volumes and in the left background can be seen a Venetian canal with gondolas.
Provenance
In the collection of the 3rd Earl of Egremont (1751-1837) by 1785. Thence by descent, until the death in 1952 of the 3rd Lord Leconfield, who had given Petworth to the National Trust in 1947, and whose nephew and heir, John Wyndham, 6th Lord Leconfield and 1st Lord Egremont (1920-72) arranged for the acceptance of the major portion of the collections at Petworth in lieu of death duties (the first ever such arrangement) in 1956 by H.M.Treasury.
Credit line
Petworth House, The Egremont Collection (acquired in lieu of tax by HM Treasury in 1956 and subsequently transferred to the National Trust)
Makers and roles
Italian (Venetian) School , artist previously catalogued as after Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Antwerp 1599 - London 1641), artist