Portrait of a Young Officer with the Sash and Star of an Order, Oil on Canvas, Austrian School, Early 19th Century, Gilt Frame

The sash falls in pale blue moiré across a dark green coat, and the silver star beside it is picked out in a hundred small white touches. Above them a very young face, blond and high-coloured, the scarlet collar rising to the jaw in gold embroidery.

Oil on canvas, 9 x 6 inches (23 x 15 cm), 11 x 8 inches (28 x 20 cm) framed, unsigned, Austrian School, first half of the nineteenth century, in a moulded gilt frame.

The sitter wears a dark green coat with a scarlet standing collar embroidered in gold scrollwork, a black silk stock, and a scarlet epaulette with twisted bullion. Across the chest runs the pale blue watered sash of an order, worn from the right shoulder, with an eight-pointed silver star on the left breast.

The handling is that of a miniaturist working in oil. The flesh is built in fine blended glazes with pearly lights on the brow and the bridge of the nose, and each eye carries a single point of white. The star is painted with a loaded brush in short strokes that catch the light, and the moiré of the sash is rendered by pale vertical breaks in the blue.

This portrait comes from a set of seven small court portraits acquired together, in matching frames and of the same dimensions. Others in the group wear the white tunic of the Austrian service. A number is pencilled on the crossbar at the back, in the way a set is marked for hanging in order.

The frame is a moulded gilt profile over red bole, worn through on the arrises.

The canvas is stable on a later keyed stretcher, with fine age craquelure throughout. The frame is split at the upper right mitre with losses to the gesso.