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SILVER Seller in Venezia, Italy
Oil painting on canvas attributed to Jacob Ferdinand Voet (Antwerp, 1639 – Paris, 1689) depicting a portrait of a gentleman. Inscription top right "AE. 21. 1666". Jacob Ferdinand Voet was one of the greatest specialists in portraiture in the age of Louis, especially Italian, starting from the 1660s and for almost three decades. He was responsible for the official portraits of leading figures of the Italian and European nobility including Christina of Sweden, the princes Chigi and Colonna, members of the Altieri family, Odescalchi, Rospigliosio and other names of the Lombard and Savoy nobility, as well as cardinals, ambassadors, etc. He was active in many cities: Rome between 1663 and 1679, Milan in 1680, Florence in 1681, Turin between 1682 and 1684 from which he then returned to Antwerp and then to Paris where he painted portraits at the court of Louis finally, it went out. His specialization was in half-length portraits in which all the attention is concentrated on the subject emerging from a dark and neutral background. The characters portrayed usually have a thoughtful expression, with the eyes acting as the main element of interest to the observer. He pays attention to details, from clothes to hair, always managing to execute each work with a fluid brushstroke and without uncertainty. The painting in question depicts a young aristocrat. A young man already 21 years old in the year 1666, as indicated by the inscription on the upper right margin of the canvas "AE 21 1666". The long brown hair, which falls here and there on the forehead to give even greater naturalness to the work, frames a face with strong features: the large eyes, which seem to look at the observer, the full mouth and, above all, the important nose. His dark suit is embellished with red ribbons and a lace handkerchief tied around his neck, also secured by a third red ribbon. The work is placed within the painter's Roman period and it is therefore inevitable to assume that the depicted is a prominent member of the nobility of the Capitoline city. See for comparison the Portrait of the Marquis Francesco Orsini de' Cavalieri in the Sgarbi Cavallini collection (with which, moreover, it also shares the dark background creating an oval) or the Male Portrait, oil on canvas (73 x 59 cm), proposed on the antiques market in 2016.
ID: 73557-1705573161-80860
