3-020-979 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"A Soldier", painted by the late John Phillip, R.A,, 1868. Engraving of a painting which '...contains the very last touches which that master hand left on canvas; and, although the painter himself may still have considered it not absolutely finished, it may justly be regarded, if not as the supreme effort of his skill, as one of the very richest examples of his powers at their best and ripest...The idea...was conceived during the artist's visit to Spain in 1865, while he was more immediately under the influence of the spell of admiration which the works of Velasquez threw over him. Phillip, having evidently proposed to emulate one of the great Spaniard's masterpieces of portraiture, chose a subject - a character of head, a period and kind of costume - which should afford full scope for force of effect and brilliancy of handling. Accordingly, we have this subject of a bearded and mustachioed warrior, soldier or officer, in steel corslet and full, black silk sleeves, with hands resting on the hilt of his rapier - the costume of Velasquez's own time. A suitable model the painter found at hand in Spain, in the person - as we may venture to say, the fact being known and acknowledged - of his friend, Captain Crealock, himself an artist'. From "Illustrated London News", 1868.