Portrait of a gentleman, three-quarter-length, in a brocaded silk Japonische rock, on the terrace of a garden at sunset

The sitter is shown wearing a Japonsche Roch, a type of kimono that became fashionable in Holland during the last quarter of the 17th century, in response to ceremonial gifts of kimonos given to Dutch East India Company officers by the Japanese shoguns. Their desirability, as an item of prestige as much as of fashion, spread through Europe during the 18th century. A popular costume for portrait subjects, Frans Hals painted a sitter in a slightly earlier garment (Seymour Slive, catalogue of the exhibition, Frans Hals, London, Royal Academy, 1989, pp. 358-360), and Peyps mentions his 'Indian gowne' hired for his portrait by John Hayls (London, National Portrait Gallery, no. 211). Dr. León Krempel, to whom we are grateful, now considers this a work from the late 1670s, noting that the manner of painting, and especially the fluency of the hair and the hands, is comparable to the portrait of Cornelis Munter, dated 1679 (see Krempel, op. cit., p. 324, no. A 210, fig. 300, pl. XXXIV). The Italianate garden setting became popular in the 1680s.