Portrait of a Gentleman

Joseph Blackburn

National Gallery of Art

Shown from the knees up, a pale-skinned man with rosy cheeks looks at us in front of a window opening in this vertical portrait painting. The man’s body is angled to our left, but he turns his head to look at us with blue eyes under smooth brows. His chestnut-brown hair is brushed off his high forehead, which slopes down to a wide nose, notably flushed cheeks, and closed pink lips. A white cravat is knotted at his throat, and his left hand, to our right, rests on his hip so it pulls back the dark brown coat he wears. The coat has flaring sleeves and silver embroidery. Translucent ivory-white cuffs of his shirt rest along the backs of his hands. His long aqua-blue vest has a floral brocade pattern and elaborate embroidery of flowers and leaves down the buttoned opening of the front, around the scalloped pocket we see, and along the bottom hem, which comes to about mid-thigh. The man holds a black tricorner hat in his right hand, to our left, by that hip. Shimmering fern-green fabric hangs in folds and swags along the left edge of the painting in front of an ash-brown wall. The rectangular window opening is to our left. A volute climbs up the lower right corner of the opening, its scrolling bulk resembling a snail’s shell. A twilight sky glows over a few treetops in the landscape beyond. The artist signed the painting as if he had inscribed the front of the windowsill. Text reads, “I: Blackburn Pinx.”