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 
31.5 x 24.5 cm
 
 
 
 
 
The artist was evidently quite taken with this figure, as he can be found in two other pastels, featured among several other figures (Jeffares, ibid., J.506.35 & J.506.343). This specific sitter is derived from, or at least inspired by, an etching by Jan Lievens of an unknown man in 'oriental' attire (Bartsch 13 / Hollstein 30 iii/iii), although Luttrell has chosen here not to copy the necklace in the original portrait, which bore the insignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece. There are two further versions of this composition and sitter by Luttrell, slightly different from ours (Jeffares, ibid., J.523.323, which features the necklace, and J.523.32302).
 
Most intriguingly, Luttrell produced a, extremely scarce mezzotint that featured our figure, entitled 'The Great Czar' in c.1709 (the only copy we have been able to trace is held by the Varshavsky Collection, New York). [1] Why the mezzotint was titled this remains a mystery, as Lievens' sitter is generally just known as an 'Oriental'. It certainly cannot be Peter the Great, who visited London as a young man in 1698 and at 6'8" and of a slim build is clearly not this man.
 
 
 
Although Luttrell's birth and parentage remain uncertain (Patrick Noon has made a strong case for him being from a prominent Devon family[2]), 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 novel practice of drawing with crayons on copper-plates and expanded the spectrum of colours which could be used, writing a treatise in 1683 on the processes involved in this and early mezzotints.