The unknown painter portrayed almost frontally and half-length is sitting in an armchair. The cap he is wearing is typical of artists. The jacket with a fur collar is tied with a golden ribbon. In his left hand he holds a palette and brushes. On the easel at the left is a painting of a water surface and a ship, which suggests that the sitter is a marine painter. In the upper right corner is an unidentified coat of arms with a helmet and a five-pointed (baronet’s?) crown at the top. On the silver escutcheon are a golden lion (?) rampant and half of a red wheel. Within the escutcheon is a master’s coat of arms with a gold background and three red oblongs.
The posture, costume and other details – the palette, the brushes, the armchair and the easel with the painting – demonstrate that the painter knew the Portrait of the Landscape Painter Jean Forest, as Aleksander A. Babin of Saint Petersburg was kind enough to point out some years ago. That portrait was painted by Nicolas de Largillierre (Paris 1656 – Paris 1746) who showed it at the Paris Salon in 1704; today it is presumed to be in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lille (oil on canvas, 129 x 96 cm, Inv. No. P 328). A smaller replica of this Largillierre portrait is kept in Berlin. The graphic artist Pierre Drevet (Paris 1697 – Paris 1739) produced a print of the French prototype.
Largillierre’s model painting also influenced some other painters, for example his brother-in-law, Jacob van Schuppen (Fontainebleau (?) 1670 – Vienna 1751), who portrayed the painter of battles Charles Parrocel around 1716 (Vienna, Österreichische Galerie).
The present portrait obviously belongs to the Austrian or Central European circle of the first half of the 18th century. It was apparently executed after a graphic model, or even after Largillierre’s original or some derivative of the latter.
The Portrait of a Seascape Painter is distantly reminiscent of Ignaz Heinitz von Heinzenthal, as is confirmed by a comparison with the painter’s Self-portrait in pilgrim’s dress (oil on canvas, 71.5 x 56 cm) which is kept in the Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien, Inv. No. 75104. The portrait in Vienna was identified by an old inscription on the back of the canvas and can be dated to around 1715.