Petrus Johannes van Reysschoot, Flemish 1702-1772- Portrait of a young man, half-length, wearing a red cap, c.1730; oil on canvas, 71.4 x 54 cm. Provenance: Private Collection, UK. Note: The attribution of the present work has been confirmed by Dr...

Petrus Johannes van Reysschoot, Flemish 1702-1772- Portrait of a young man, half-length, wearing a red cap, c.1730; oil on canvas, 71.4 x 54 cm. Provenance: Private Collection, UK. Note: The attribution of the present work has been confirmed by Dr Brian Allen and represents an important addition to the oeuvre of van Reysschoot. The identity of the sitter is unknown, though his informal open shirt and cap suggests that he may himself be an artist. It is possible, also, that he relates to the figure of the transverse flute player in the artist’s ‘Elegant Party taking Coffee on a Terrace a formal Garden beyond’, offered at Sotheby’s, London, 24 April 2008, lot 117. A red chalk sketch in the Rijksmuseum additionally bears facial and sartorial similarities [RP-T-1992-93-64(V)] and conceivably represents a preparatory drawing for the present work. A Flemish artist from Ghent, van Reysschoot travelled to England in the 1730s, having won a prize at the Paris Academy in 1730. The present work likely dates to the early years of this decade in London, and, as Brian Allen has pointed out, can be compared in handling to another work from this period, dated 1732, ‘Portrait of a boy in tartan, called Prince Henry Benedict Stuart’ (Wolrige-Gordon Collection, Aberdeenshire). The present work further echoes the grace and animation of the sculpture busts of Louis-François Roubiliac (1702-1762), who Reysschoot had studied alongside in Paris. Van Reysschoot spent a large part of his career in England, which earned him the nickname 'den Engelschman' ('the Englishman'), returning to his native Ghent in the mid-1740s. In England he painted portraits, religious, historical and sporting subjects, and Watteauesque conversational pieces, with many of his works exhibiting the influences of both Francis Hayman (1708-1776) and John Wootton (1686-1764). He had a strong portrait practice amongst the Midlands gentry and was also employed by the family of the Jacobite 4th Duke of Beaufort, as evidenced by the existence of a signed set of portraits there. A portrait by van Reysschoot was sold recently at Sotheby's, London, 5 July 2018, lot 193.
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