EDWARD LUTTRELL (c.1650-1737)

PORTRAIT OF A MAN IN A FUR-LINED JACKET AND HAT
Signed & and dated centre right ELUTTRELL 1709
Pastels on paper laid to canvas
31.5 x 24.5 cm
 
 
 
 
The subject of the present work was repeated in another of Luttrell's pastels, together with two further male heads, previously with Charles Ratton & Guy Ladrière, Paris, in 1997. (1) This specific sitter is derived from an etching by Jan Lievens of an unknown man in 'oriental' attire (Hollstein 30 III/III), though Luttrell has chosen here not to copy the necklace in the original portrait, which bore the insignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece. 
 
 
Although nothing is known of Luttrell's birth and parentage, he began studying law in about 1670 at New Inn, London. He soon abandoned this path to pursue a career as an artist, and became a pupil of the portraitist Edmund Ashfield, one of the foremost early British pastellists. Luttrell developed the use of drawing with crayons on copper-plates and expanded the spectrum of colours which could be used, and wrote a manuscript in 1683 on the processes involved in this and early mezzotints. Luttrell was predominantly based in Westminster, London.