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Portrait of a Man
Sébastien Bourdon (French, 1616–1671)
1657–58
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 104.2 × 88.1 cm (41 1/16 × 34 11/16 in.); Framed: 125.8 × 114.3 × 10.2 cm (49 1/2 × 45 × 4 in.)
- Culture
- France
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
This portrait, at once elegant and direct, may be a remnant of a larger painting of the consuls, or civic administrators, of Montpellier, Sébastien Bourdon’s native city in the south of France. Bourdon returned there briefly in the midst of a career that included early years in Rome, successful activity in Paris, and a short stint at the Stockholm court of Queen Christina of Sweden from 1652 to 1653. The large, isolated swath of fabric on the left and the absence of the sitter’s left hand suggest that it was cut from Bourdon’s group portrait.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
