Image of Gallery in South Kensington
Request to view at the Prints & Drawings Study Room, level F , Case RMC, Shelf 9, Box D

An Unknown Man

Portrait Miniature
1670-1675 (painted)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Portrait of a man, half-length, turned to left and looking to front; the sitter is wearing a neckcloth tied in a bow, long wig and suit of armour; on the left is a baton and a helmet with plumes. Features freely hatched in brown and sanguine, with black in the eyes and facial hair and touches of white for the eyes and tip of the nose, on a pale creamy carnation ground; hair in brown wash, deeply hatched in gummy black and grey with ochre lights; cravat in impasted white over a grey wash; armour, landscape background and accoutrements in appropriate opaque washes, hatched with darker colour and heightened with white; sash in lake washed wet-in-wet; a black marginal strip; on vellum put down on a leaf from a table- book.

Frame:
Tortoiseshell and black oak, perhaps late eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century. The back board with a label of William Dodds, Carver Gilder and Glass Manufacturer, of 5 St Martin's Lane.


Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleAn Unknown Man (generic title)
Materials and techniques
Watercolour on vellum put down on a leaf from a table- book
Brief description
Portrait miniature of an unknown man, watercolour on vellum, painted by W. P., probably William Pawlett, 1670-1675.
Physical description
Portrait of a man, half-length, turned to left and looking to front; the sitter is wearing a neckcloth tied in a bow, long wig and suit of armour; on the left is a baton and a helmet with plumes. Features freely hatched in brown and sanguine, with black in the eyes and facial hair and touches of white for the eyes and tip of the nose, on a pale creamy carnation ground; hair in brown wash, deeply hatched in gummy black and grey with ochre lights; cravat in impasted white over a grey wash; armour, landscape background and accoutrements in appropriate opaque washes, hatched with darker colour and heightened with white; sash in lake washed wet-in-wet; a black marginal strip; on vellum put down on a leaf from a table- book.

Frame:
Tortoiseshell and black oak, perhaps late eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century. The back board with a label of William Dodds, Carver Gilder and Glass Manufacturer, of 5 St Martin's Lane.
Dimensions
  • Height: 224mm
  • Width: 188mm
Dimensions taken from John Murdoch Seventeenth-century English Miniatures in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. London: The Stationery Office, 1997.
Content description
Portrait of a man wearing armour, neckcloth and long wig, a helmet on the left.
Styles
Marks and inscriptions
'WP' (Signed in white, lower left)
Credit line
Bequeathed by John Jones
Object history
Provenance: Acquired by John Jones from an unrecorded source and by him bequeathed to the Museum, 1882.
Subjects depicted
Bibliographic reference
Murdoch, John. Seventeenth-century English Miniatures in the Collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London: The Stationery Office in association with the Victoria & Albert Museum, 1997.
Collection
Accession number
612-1882

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Record createdJuly 1, 2009
Record URL
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