3-002-697 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Portrait of an Alderman of the City of Paris, 1640-1659. This head of a man is painted on a piece of irregular canvas that has probably been cut from a larger painting, probably one of Philippe de Champaigne's lost group portraits of the mayor and aldermen of Paris. The sitter may be Sebastian Cramoisy, an alderman of the city of Paris of whom other portraits exist. The qualities of Champaigne as a portraitist come out in his observation of individual quirks such as the tensions around the sitter's left eye.