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Lot Essay
The soft, reticent modelling of the head and lighting of this portrait, shows similarities to Dahl's drawing of an Unknown Boy (The Huntingdon Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California). Both pictures are datable to circa 1700, when Dahl had moved away from his 'Baroque' style of the 1690s as exemplified in child portraits such as those of the Verney children (recorded in the collection of Lord Willoughby de Broke, London, in 1927), to a style characterised by simpler, lighter forms and delicate colouring.
The previous identification of the sitter as Henry Jermyn, 1st Earl of St. Albans is untenable as the Earl died childless at an advanced age in 1684. The identifying inscription is also erroneous as Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St. Albans, was born in 1670 and died in 1726.
We are grateful to Professor J. Douglas Stewart for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.
The previous identification of the sitter as Henry Jermyn, 1st Earl of St. Albans is untenable as the Earl died childless at an advanced age in 1684. The identifying inscription is also erroneous as Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St. Albans, was born in 1670 and died in 1726.
We are grateful to Professor J. Douglas Stewart for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.
