JOHN CLOSTERMAN (OSNABRÜCK 1660-1711 LONDON) Portrait of a gentleman, believed to be a self-portrait oil on canvas 27 1/2  x 23 in. (69.8 x 58.4 cm.) Provenance: Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 21 March 1956, lot 82, as Dobson. (£15 to Easton) Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 24 July 1981, lot 128, as John Baptist Closterman (£850). Literature: (possibly) G. Vertue, Notebook, i.22. George Vertue  (1684-1756) was an engraver and antiquarian who produced an invaluable series of notebooks with information concerning English artists. He noted ‘Mr John Closterman his picture painted by himself in the hands of Mr Cope. Another in the possession of Mr Tiburin.’ These self-portraits have been presumed lost, perhaps until now. The present lot is dated in Closterman’s oeuvre to c.1690, when the artist would have been thirty years old. The self-confidence of the sitter and sense of immediacy combined with the composition make a compelling argument for a self-portrait. The broad and spontaneous handling suggest that this portrait was not a commission, but rather for personal use or for someone close to the painter. It can also be compared to Sir Godfrey Kneller’s (1646-1723) self-portrait, in his own hair, of c.1685 in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Kneller was London’s most successful portrait painter of the time, it is therefore likely that Closterman was familiar with his self-portrait. The position of the left hand echoes a further Kneller self-portrait, in a wig, of c.1688-90 (engraved Pieter Schenk, National Portrait Gallery, London), which in turn may derive from a self-portrait by Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Private Collection on loan to the Rubenshuis) ‘with his left hand at his breast’, which was last recorded in the Royal Collection in 1688 (Sir Oliver Millar in Barnes, De Poorter, Millar and Vey, Van Dyck a Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, 2004 IV A2).