Portrait of a bearded man, bust-length, in a red cloak

The attribution of this hitherto unrecorded picture has been confirmed by Professor Nicola Spinosa after inspection of the original. He dates the picture to circa 1632-4 on the grounds of its stylistic affinities to the two pictures of Saint James the Greater in the Museo de Bellas Artes, Seville, and in the Galleria Corsini, Rome (see N. Spinosa, Ribera, Naples, 2003, p. 288, A125). The present picture specifically relates to the three-quarter-length Saint James the Greater in the collection at Burghley House, Lincolnshire, the property of the Burghley House Preservation Trust (op.cit., p. 285, A114), and is perhaps an initial study of the model for that picture.