Portrait of a Three Year Old Boy

English School 1596

Oil on panel

23 x 19 inches; 58.5 x 48 cm

Provenance:

English Private Collection

This picture is an extremely rare survivor of late sixteenth century child portraiture and, unusually, retains its original frame. The frame is inscribed with both the date of the painting, 1596, a date confirmed by dendrochronological anaylsis of the European oak panel on which it is painted, and the age of the sitter, ‘Aetatis 3’.

The boy holds the attributes of youth and familial devotion, a pair of cherries and a single carnation, or ‘pink’. The picture was evidently painted from life, judging from the free and sketchy nature of the under-drawing visible beneath the paint layers.

The flower probably relates to the Latin inscription, which can be translated as ‘Life is a flower followed by dust and shadow’.