Pair of Flemish Old Master Portraits by Melchior Brassauw

N-0135A: Pair of Flemish Old Master Portraits by Melchior Brassauw
Brassauw, Melchior (Flemish, 1709–1757)
Flemish, first half of the 18th century
Panel: height 15cm, width 13cm
Frame: height 20cm, width 18cm, depth 3cm

This pair of portraits is executed in oils on panel and set within giltwood frames.
The first panel presents a man in a plumed turban, its crown of pale wound cloth caught with a band of crimson velvet and studded with pearls, from which a white ostrich feather sweeps back into the shadows. He wears a coral-red coat lined and cuffed in white fur over a pale rose waistcoat closed with rows of silvered frogging, a soft sash at the waist, and linen shirt cuffs turned back at the wrists. His left hand rests on the head of a cane and the right is tucked against his sash, and he turns his head towards the viewer.
Its companion shows a young woman seated at a table in a rose-red gown edged with white fur, worn open over a laced chemise. She wears pearls at her throat and drops at her ears, and a jewelled clasp with a white plume is set into her fair curls. In one hand she raises a blue and white jug with a hinged cover, in the other a wine glass on a knopped stem, the rose-coloured wine catching the light.
Both figures emerge from deep umber grounds, against which the reds and creamy whites of the dress are set off. The handling is close for panels of this scale, particularly in the feathers, the fur trimmings and the transparent glass, and the two compositions answer one another as a pair.
Melchior Brassauw was born in Mechelen in 1709 and was active in Antwerp. He worked in the tradition of the Flemish and Dutch masters of the previous century, whose taste for exotic costume and richly lit interiors he revisited for the collectors of his own day.
The panels are housed in a matching pair of giltwood frames with beaded and gadrooned mouldings, the corners applied with dark foliate spandrels.
$18,000