Portrait of a Gentleman

Thomas Flatman · Late 17th century

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

7.6 × 6 cm (3 × 2 3/8 in.); Framed: 17.6 × 15.6 × 4 cm (6 15/16 × 6 1/8 × 1 9/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Baroque

Thomas Flatman's *Portrait of a Gentleman* offers an intimate window into the composed self-presentation of late seventeenth-century English portraiture, the sitter's steady gaze carrying a quiet, considered authority. Flatman occupies a singular place in English art history as both a skilled portrait painter and a published poet — a combination that was unusual even in an era that valued the accomplished gentleman. Working in the tradition established by Samuel Cooper, he brought to his portraits a sensitivity to psychological character that sets them apart from more formal court painting of the period. His handling of light on fabric and flesh reflects the influence of Dutch naturalism that had filtered into English studios during the Restoration years, giving his subjects a tangible, living presence. Flatman is documented as having been admitted to the Inner Temple and later becoming a Fellow of the New College, Oxford — a reminder that his career as a painter ran alongside a serious intellectual life rather than defining him entirely. This hand-painted oil reproduction on canvas preserves the tonal restraint and careful modelling of the original, giving you a work that reads with the same settled gravity as Flatman's own brush — painted by hand, not printed, and built up in layers the way the original was made.