A New England Sea Captain or Merchant, circa 1798.
Oil on canvas (relined), 40 ¼ inches x 30 ¼ inches; in later frame.
Jose Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza was the leading painter of Creole society in New Orleans for the last two decades of the 18th century. Salazar had first arrived in New Orleans in c. 1780, in search of more lucrative commissions and patronage than he had enjoyed while working in Mexico. This 3/4-length portrait features a handsome Anglo-American gentleman wearing a brown, double-breasted, riding coat of English fashion, with white double-breasted waistcoat, shirt with breast “chitterling” or ruffles and a white roller or neckstock. frock coat and cravat. Judging by the cut of clothing and hairstyle of the sitter, it was probably painted in New Orleans sometime between 1796 and 1802, the year of the artist's death. The sitter was probably from a Massachusetts North Shore seafaring family, as it was purchased by a Maine collector some 30 years ago at an estate auction in Newburyport, Massachusetts. The work typifies the archetypal portrait Salazar painted at the turn of the 18th century with its telling red ochre background as well the characteristic pose and composition often used by the artist.
As with nearly all known works by this artist, the coloring is lightly applied in thin, glazed layers. Salazar was known to have painted American military figures, sea captains, and wealthy merchants, many of whom had come to New Orleans from other locales for business and political purposes. The portraits were frequently sent back to the prominent families in the Northeast from which the sitters originated, likely the history of this work. The standing portrait at waist-length with one hand in the sitter’s coat had become an iconic pose by the late 1700s, and Salazar implemented it often for his prominent sitters. Three known paintings by Salazar of other Anglo-American visitors to New Orleans, namely Thomas Butler, Jr. (Gilchrease Institute), the Portrait of a Bristol, Rhode Island Gentleman (private collection) and Captain William Preston Smith (sold by James Kochan Fine Art to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 2012), all share nearly identical poses, as well as the feigned rondel seen in the painting offered here. Salazar's works are extremely rare today and highly desirable. Item #118
Price: $13,750.00