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Image of Gallery in South Kensington
Request to view at the Prints & Drawings Study Room, level F , Case RMC, Shelf 1, Box H

An Unknown Man

Portrait Miniature
ca. 1695 (painted)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Portrait of a man, head and shoulders, turned slightly to right, eyes to left and wearing a neckcloth and armour. Features finely hatched in pale brown, with some sanguine for the lips and dark grey for the eyes, on a pale yellowish carnation ground; hair in pale brown wash, hatched and lined with dark brown, dark grey and pale grey; cravat in pale brown wash modelled in white; armour in pale brown wash, worked over with dark grey and with white for the lights and ochre for the rivets; background a solid brown wash; on vellum put down on a leaf from a table-book.

Frame: Seventeenth-century oval gold locket; convex back, straight sides with a single narrow thread moulding incised at the arris, and holding the convex glass in a bezel by its bevelled edges; hanger of D-section formed as a simple ring, and strengthened with a rattail down the back; set in a turned oval black wooden frame of apparently eighteenth-century type. Compare the locket with that on Cat. No. 140. [P.21-1955]


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 Susannah-Penelope Rosse, ca.1695.
Physical description
Portrait of a man, head and shoulders, turned slightly to right, eyes to left and wearing a neckcloth and armour. Features finely hatched in pale brown, with some sanguine for the lips and dark grey for the eyes, on a pale yellowish carnation ground; hair in pale brown wash, hatched and lined with dark brown, dark grey and pale grey; cravat in pale brown wash modelled in white; armour in pale brown wash, worked over with dark grey and with white for the lights and ochre for the rivets; background a solid brown wash; on vellum put down on a leaf from a table-book.

Frame: Seventeenth-century oval gold locket; convex back, straight sides with a single narrow thread moulding incised at the arris, and holding the convex glass in a bezel by its bevelled edges; hanger of D-section formed as a simple ring, and strengthened with a rattail down the back; set in a turned oval black wooden frame of apparently eighteenth-century type. Compare the locket with that on Cat. No. 140. [P.21-1955]
Dimensions
  • Height: 28mm
  • Width: 24mm
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, turned to right and wearing armour and a neckcloth.
Styles
Marks and inscriptions
'SR' (Signed lower centre left, in ochre)
Credit line
Alan Evans Bequest, given by the National Gallery
Object history
Provenance: Presumably acquired from Cooper's estate by the Rosses, or perhaps by Priestman (see Rosse, Cat. No. 143) and perhaps in the Michael Rosse sale, 2 April 1723; eventually purchased by Edwin [Durning] Lawrence before 1862, and sold by him to the Museum for £525 in 1892.
Subjects depicted
Bibliographic reference
Murdoch, John. Seventeenth-century English Miniatures in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. London: The Stationery Office, 1997.
Collection
Accession number
EVANS.45

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Record createdJuly 10, 2003
Record URL
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