Artwork Title: Portrait of a man, full-length, handing a letter to a boy, in an interior (The Young Messenger)

Portrait of a man, full-length, handing a letter to a boy, in an interior (The Young Messenger), 1640

Attributed To Gonzales Coques

55.9 × 44.1 cm This intriguing panel, part portrait and part genre painting, was possibly painted by Coques, who specialized in small-scale, finely worked portraits and family groups. Its unfinished state gives us a glimpse into a practice that may have been shared by other Dutch artists in which the artist painted the heads and objects in a room—here the closely observed velvet-covered armchair and the implements related to the task of writing—while leaving the men’s clothing at the level of underdrawing. Perhaps at this point a studio assistant would have taken up the painting. [https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/656485]
Uploaded on Apr 28, 2018 by Suzan Hamer

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