WORKSHOP OF DIRCK SANTVOORT
Portrait of a Man Standing by a Table
inscribed on the reverse AETAT SUAE 26, ANNO 1636, and inscribed Descartes on an old label on the reverse
oval, oil on panel
20 x 13 ½ inches (50.8 x 34.3 cm)
PROVENANCE
Professor G.M. Trevelyan, Historian and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge
In all likelihood this painting, executed in 1636, was part of a pair of portraits commissioned at the time of the sitter’s marriage. As these paintings were passed down in families they quite often became separated; siblings taking one parent each and so forth.
The attribution to the workshop of Dirck Santvoort is of course stylistically based, but also further confirmed by a portrait Santvoort executed of Adriaantie Roosecrans. Done in the same oval format, the positioning of the sitters as well as the interiors are almost identical.