John Eldred, c. 1670/1680

Not on View

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 76.2 x 63.5 cm (30 x 25 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of John Nichols Estabrook and Dorothy Coogan Estabrook

Accession Number

1988.20.1

Artists / Makers

John Riley (painter) English, 1646 - 1691

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Provenance

By descent to Sir John Ruggles-Brise, Bt. [b. 1908], Spains Hall, Finchingfield, Essex (sale, Sotheby's, 21 January 1976, no. 87 [with a portrait of his grandson's wife, Susannah Rawston, wrongly described as his own wife], as Kneller, bought in). Purchased by private treaty after the sale by John N. Estabrook, Chicago; by bequest to NGA from the Estate of John Nichols Estabrook, 1988.[1]

[1] Presented to NGA in 1988 by Estabrook's sister, Laura Estabrook Romine, through the estate executors.

Associated Names

Estabrook, John Nichols
Estabrook, John Nichols, Estate of
Ruggles-Brise, 2nd Bt., John, Sir
Sotheby's, London

Technical Summary

The medium-weight canvas is plain woven; it has been lined. The ground is white, thinly and smoothly applied. There is a thin, pink imprimatura used to model the shadows in the face and which appears through the gray layers of the hair. The composition is painted within a bold gray-brown feigned oval. The painting is executed in thin layers, blended wet into wet, with boldly touched impasto in the highlights. Retouching is minimal, but some of the glazes may have become more transparent or have been thinned. The natural resin varnish is in very poor condition and is moderately discolored.

Bibliography

1992: Hayes, John. British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1992: 226-228, repro. 227.