Portrait of a gentleman, three-quarter length, richly attired in an elaborate silk satin doublet decorated with slashing and silk braid, embroidered breeches, linen ruff and metal collar, a sword at his side, his right hand on a table later inscribed 'Robert Dudley/ Earl of Leicester/ AE 43' (upper left) oil on panel 113 x 81cm

Provenance: By descent in the Milner-Gibson-Cullum collection at Hardwick House, Bury St Edmunds, to George Gery Milner-Gibson-Cullum (d. 1921) by 1875, Thence by inheritance in 1921 to his niece, the daughter of his sister Alice Mary Robertson, Margaret Alice Maud Gurney (1864-1948) of Spixworth Hall, Norwich until 1936 and subsequently at Warwick House, Bury St Edmunds until her death in 1948, By descent to her nephew Brigadier Cecil Hay Gurney (b. 1901), His sale on the premises at Warwick House, Messrs. H C Wolton & Son, 18th June 1954, no. 358; According to the later owner Bryan Hall (see below) acquired by the then owner of Hemingstone Hall, Miss Sarah Martin (b.1899) and at Hemingtone Hall until 1957/8 when acquired by someone in Lincolnshire; Acquired by Bryan Hall in Norwich on 5th December 1962, His sale on the premises at The Old Rectory, Banningham, Bonhams, 22nd-24th March 2004, lot 330, identified as 'Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester aged 43', Private collection, Suffolk

Exhibited: London, The New Gallery, The Royal House of Tudor, 1890, no. 352, as by Federico Zuccaro and as of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester Literature: The Reverend Edmund Farrer, Portraits in Suffolk Houses (West), 1908, p. 149, no. 44 We are grateful to Sir Roy Strong who from a photograph confirms the present painting to date after 1600 and that the sitter is unknown and certainly neither Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester nor Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex which at times the present painting has been thought to represent.

The painting is executed in oil on a wooden panel support which has a cradle on the reverse. The panel is flat and in plane. There has been movement in the vertical panel joins in the past, evident through the texture of the paint layers and overpaint. The thin background layer has wear and abrasion following the vertical woodgrain of the panel. There are old losses across the surface which have not all been restored, for example, in the sitter’s forehead. In the sitter’s clothing, a network of age cracks have formed which are slightly raised but stable overall. There is overpaint across the surface which is well matched to the original and sensitively applied, not seeking to disguise the age of the painting. The varnish is clear, even and semi-matte. There is a light layer of surface dirt present including drips and spots.