Gentleman in decorative armour

Older literature indicates that this enamel portrait of a gentleman is a likeness of William II of Orange-Nassau.¹ Yet this cannot be correct, not only because it lacks similarity, but also because William would have been only 19 years old when the miniature was painted.² The portrait shows a thirty- to forty-year-old man with blue eyes and long brown curly hair. He is wearing decorative armour including a helmet crowned with coloured feathers and a gilt dragon. He has a white sash over his left shoulder, but wears no other visible awards or decorations.

This is one of the few signed works by Henri Toutin. As he was the son of Jean Toutin (1578–1644), he more or less learned the art of enamel painting from the cradle, given that his father is regarded as the inventor of this new painting technique. The palette of pigments suitable for enamelling and hardened by firing, was continually expanded in the following centuries, but a wide range was available even as the technique emerged – as this piece demonstrates.

There is no record of where Toutin painted this work, which is dated 1645. The artist settled in Paris around 1636, but it is possible that he visited several European courts in the years that followed in order to work there for a time.

B. P.