Karl Pavlovich Briullov 1799-1852 PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN signed in Latin and dated 1826 D. m.l. watercolour on card 33.5 by 26.5cm, 13 1/4 by 10 1/2 in.

This superb portrait is among the earliest recorded from the period Briullov spent in Italy between 1823 and 1835. He grew immensely popular with members of both the Russian and Italian aristocracy and in his correspondence with the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, which initially sponsored his trip, Briullov reports that he is so inundated with commissions that he is unable to fulfil all of them. Watercolour portraits gained popularity during the 1820s and 1830s, but Briullov's exceptionally fine examples 'stand out from the work of his contemporaries with the complexity of the composition and palette' (E.Petrova (ed.), K.P.Briullov, St Petersburg, p.30). Unafraid to use dark tones, he would build up layers of paint to model the features of his sitters; the saturated colours of the garments of the present sitter and the surrounding vegetation are characteristic of his Roman watercolours. As Petrova points out, his treatment of watercolour is not so very different to his use of oil and the resulting portraits often feel as though they are painted on miniature canvases.