Portrait of a gentleman, bust-length, with a further portrait beneath

This striking portrait is a rare surviving work by Isaac Fuller, a flamboyant painter who achieved fame as a portraitist following the Restoration of Charles II in England. A controversial figure and a notorious drunkard, Fuller's reputation was somewhat undermined by his bohemian lifestyle but the few extant works, including a marvellously idiosyncratic self-portrait with one of his sons (c.1670; London, National Portrait Gallery), demonstrate the talent of this mercurial artist. Recent restoration has revealed an earlier abandoned portrait beneath this work, which is best viewed turning the canvas upside-down, and shows the head of a man behind the sitter’s hand.

Fuller's date of birth is the subject of some debate among scholars but according to Bainbrigg Buckeridge (writing in 1704), he is thought to have trained in Paris with the French painter François Perrier. In the early 1660s, he was active in Oxford where he decorated the chapels at Magdalen and All Souls Colleges. These works are now lost but the diarist John Evelyn wrote that the artist's fresco at All Souls would not survive long, being 'too full of nakeds'. Fuller painted a series of large panels representing the escape of Charles II after the Battle of Worcester. These works, now in the National Portrait Gallery, London, are thought to have been owned by Henry Cary, 4th Viscount Falkland (1634-1663), who was in the party that escorted Charles II back to a England before his coronation. Fuller ended his career by painting decorative schemes (all now lost) for numerous London taverns, of which it is said he was an habitué. Sir Peter Lely lamented 'that so great an artist should besot or neglect so great a talent'. Horace Walpole, who was witheringly critical of Fuller’s history painting, praised the artist’s portraits, in which 'his pencil was bold strong and masterly'.

The attribution has been independently confirmed by Dr. Malcolm Rogers and Brian Allen (private communications with the owner).