Portrait of a gentleman, three-quarter-length, in armour with an orange silk sash, resting his hand on his helmet, a landscape beyond

Pieter Nason trained with Jan van Ravensteyn and was in Amsterdam by 1638. He was accepted as a member of The Hague guild of painters the following year and spent some time working at the Elector's Court in Berlin before returning to The Hague. Although Nason was a respected still-life painter, his portraits of fashionable patrons are perhaps better known. Nason later departed from the style of Van Ravensteyn towards the more refined elegance of Adriaen Hanneman, whose portraits upon his return to England were considered preferable to the former. The smooth and highly polished surface of the present lot, similar to those portraits by Bartholomeus van der Helst whose work overtook Rembrandt's in contemporary popularity, is characteristic of Nason's oeuvre.