# Portrait of a Man [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [BOURDON, Sébastien]() - Date: 1601-1650 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 105 x 65 cm ## Commentary In Rome the young Bourdon was exposed to some of the greatest portraits of the Renaissance in the collections there, as well as to the constant experiments of artists as diverse as Bernini, Lanfranco and Domenichino, who all painted portraits. from all these influences Bourdon compounded his own style, which inevitably became a formula, but a successful one. He often painted his sitters three-quarters on, in a soft and even light, and preferred waist-length portraits and a feeling of relative informality. With his curious mixture of Italian influences, Bourdon set the style for middle-class French portraiture for almost the rest of the century. One of the best examples is his Portrait of a Man at Montpellier, which is a "tour de force" of subtle modelling and lighting. Indeed, almost all the surviving middle-class portraits of the time in France, that are not by Philippe de Champaigne and his followers, copy this type. The sitter of this portrait is unknown. ## Related artworks - [A Scene from Roman History]() - [Adoration of the Magi]() - [Bacchus and Ceres with Nymphs and Satyrs]() - [Countess Ebba Sparre]() - [Death of Dido]() - [Deposition from the Cross \(detail\)]() - [Deposition from the Cross]() - [King Solomon Sacrificing to the Idols]() - [Moses and the Brazen Serpent]() - [Presentation in the Temple]() - [Presumed Portrait of René Descartes]() - [Queen Christina of Sweden on Horseback]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()