Circle of Margaret Sarah Carpenter, 
British 1793-1872- 
Portrait of a Gentleman in Polish...

Circle of Margaret Sarah Carpenter, 
British 1793-1872- 

Portrait of a Gentleman in Polish costume, half-length, wearing a crimson coat and a fur hat adorned with ribbons and a plume; 

oil on canvas, 75.4 x 63.8 cm. 

Provenance: 
Anon. sale, Sotheby’s, London, 18 May 1960, lot 77, as (‘A. GEDDES’); 
Where purchased by the father of the present owner. 
Private Collection, UK. 

Note: 
Although this intriguing portrait was once believed to be the work of the Scottish painter Andrew Geddes (1783-1844), it has more recently been suggested that, while strongly influenced by the historical-themed ‘fancy portraits’ painted by Geddes and his contemporaries, it was more likely painted by a slightly later hand. 

The florid flesh tones and crisply rendered facial features, as well as the sitter’s pose and the directness of his gaze are highly reminiscent of the works of Margaret Carpenter, who would certainly have been familiar with the works of Andrew Geddes, not only through her marriage to curator William Hookham Carpenter (1792–1866), who was a close friend of Geddes’s, but possibly also through the family of her father, Captain Alexander Geddes, who may have been a relation of the Scottish artist. Margaret Carpenter’s allegorical portrayal of a monk, now in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum (FA.17[O]), and her portrait of Mrs W. Collins in the Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa (1912-0038-2) in particular show strong similarities to the present picture both in handling and composition. Carpenter also appears to have shown an interest in Eastern European costume and subject matter, and exhibited a picture entitled ‘Head of a Polish Jew’ at the British Institution in 1823. 

The fashion for depicting sitters in Eastern European costume first flourished in England and Scotland in the 18th century, and the picture presented here appears to have taken inspiration from Allan Ramsay’s (1713-1764) portrait of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Armenian Costume, held at the Scottish National Gallery (NG 820) as well as Henry Raeburn’s (1756-1823) ‘Portrait of a Jew’ in the same collection (NG 2108). These Scottish portraits in turn hark back to examples from the Dutch Golden Age, particularly Rembrandt’s well-known portrayal of a Polish nobleman, now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC (inv. No. 1937.1.78), which also appears to have influenced the painter of the present portrait. 

Like the costumes depicted in the Rembrandt and Raeburn portraits, the fur-trimmed hat and coat worn by the sitter in the present work are likely Polish in origin, and of the type worn by noblemen or ‘Szlachta’ during the 17th century. The hat with its distinctive plume is similar to the one worn by Stanislaw Teczynski in Tomasso Dolabella’s portrait of circa 1630, and it has been suggested that the crimson coat could be a Ferezja or Delia, which were worn by Polish noblemen during the same period. 

Whilst we are of the opinion that the portrait is likely British in origin, it is worth noting that artists associated with the 19th-century academies in Central Europe are known to have worked in a similar, British-influenced style, and tentative connections to the art schools of Munich, Vienna and Kraków have also been suggested. 

We are grateful to Dr Nicola Kozicharow for her assistance in identifying the sitter’s costume.