(Aix-en-Provence 1684–1745)
Portrait of a gentleman in a red velvet cloak,
oil on canvas, 90 x 71.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Dorotheum, Vienna, 15 October 2013, lot 583;
Private European collection

We are grateful to Jean Jacques Petit and Georg Lechner, for both
independently confirming the attribution of the present painting.

Both in the monumental scale of the overall composition and in the
fine execution of the red velvet cape, richly embroidered on the inside, this interesting rediscovered portrait exudes an air of grandeur and confidence which points to an important sitter, probably a friend of the artist. Although it is not possible to suggest an exact date for this very impressive portrait, it appears to be a work from the very last years of van Loo’s life, after his English sojourn as a celebrated portrait painter, executed either shortly upon his arrival in Paris in 1742 or in Aix-en-Provence, where the artist had bought the magnificent Pavillon Vendôme, one of the city’s most beautiful hôtels particuliers. This is also supported by the fashion of the wig, which appears to be somewhat more in the style of the 1740s than those of the sitters in van Loo’s earlier, more Régence style, French works. The fact that van Loo was able to live in such splendour as the Pavillon Vendôme, sheds light on his extraordinary success as an international artist of many princely and noble houses throughout Europe. In his outstanding career, and at a time where success as a portrait painter was invariably and only secured by royal patronage, he did not only paint Louis XV, Queen
Maria Leszczynska, King Stanislaus Augustus of Poland, Carlo Emanuele, King of Sardegna, but also the first prime minister Horace Walpole and the Prince of Wales (the future King George III) and his wife Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. As the present painting demonstrates, he was able to combine a fine characterised likeness with a very noble use of colour and compositional elements, resulting in quite realistic yet very elegant portraits. Interestingly, the pose of the hand appears to be a requisite of self-portraits in the van Loo family, as is demonstrated by numerous examples.

Van Loo was a native of Aix and came from a family with a strong
artistic and Netherlandish tradition. His grandfather Jacob van Loo had been one of the most important Dutch classicists, and his father Louis Abraham consequently moved to France as the artistic domination of the French academic style drew close to the Golden Age of painting in the Netherlands. Having received his first training with his father, he was patronised by the Prince of Carignan, who sent him to Rome, where he studied under Benedetto Luti. Here he was much employed on church pictures, and in particular executed a greatly praised Flagellation of Christ for Santa Maria in Monticelli. In Turin, he worked for Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy, and several members of his court. He then moved to Paris, where he was elected a member of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, and executed various altarpieces and restored the works of Francesco Primaticcio at Fontainebleau. In 1737 he went to England, where some of his most accomplished works were completed. His portrait of Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham (National Portrait Gallery, inv. no. NPG 286), is executed in a style very similar (even though the dress and wig of Lord Cobham is of a slightly less fashionable style than the wardrobe of the present sitter) as the present painting, and as it dates from circa 1740, it provides evidence of the stylistic development of the artist shortly before returning to his native France, and shortly before the present work was commissioned.