PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN WEARING A SMOKING JACKET ~ FLEMISH SCHOOL

Code: H150

Dimensions:

This well executed painting is by a highly accomplished but unidentified Flemish artist, and can be dated to circa 1720.

Gallery note: The sitter is presumably a merchant, shown with his Dutch brand of tobacco and clay pipe. After tobacco was discovered by Columbus in 1492, the Dutch enjoyed pipe smoking and by the early 18 th c the entrepreneurial Amsterdam merchant became rich and successful in the tobacco trade, blending cheaper native with imported