Portrait of a Habsburg Hussar Officer in Blue Uniform, Early 19th Century Oil on Canvas, Austrian School, Framed

The pelisse is thrown back over the left shoulder and the fur reads black against the pale blue dolman, which is the whole drama of a hussar's dress uniform in one gesture.

Oil on canvas, 9 x 6 inches (23 x 15 cm), 11 x 8 inches (28 x 20 cm) framed. Unsigned. Austrian, early nineteenth century, in a period gilt frame.

A young officer turns three quarters against a dark olive ground, red haired and lightly moustached. He wears the light blue dolman with its ranks of red frogging, a gold laced red waistcoat beneath, and a broad watered sash across the chest, its colours now faded. On the left breast is the star of the Order of Saint Stephen of Hungary, silver rays around a red medallion charged with the white patriarchal cross under a crown, founded by Maria Theresa in 1764. A jewelled badge hangs at the throat on a red ribbon. Nothing else is in the picture at all, which throws everything onto the uniform and the face.

The painter worked at the scale of a miniaturist. Each curl of the red hair is drawn separately, the star is built from thirty individual strokes of white across two centimetres, and the lace at the cuff and the throat is the only raised paint on the canvas. A shadow is thrown behind the fur collar to lift the figure off the ground.

The frame is narrow and old, water gilt over red bole and burnished by hand, the gilding worn through along the mouldings.

The canvas has not been relined and sits on its keyed stretcher with a single crossbar, the paint layer stable with the fine craquelure normal to a canvas of the period.