Lot 101: Jacques Albert Sénave , Loo 1758 - 1829 Parijs Portrait of a gentleman, seated three-quarter length, in his study, wearing a grey suit oil on canvas, unlined

signed and dated lower left: I. SENAVE. fecit/ 1783 ; and inscribed with the sitter's age centre left: ÆTATIS XLVIII oil on canvas, unlined

measurements note 69.5 by 55.4 cm.

THE PROPERTY OF A FAMILY
Hitherto unrecorded and unpublished, this portrait is a rare addition to Sénave's oeuvre, which primarily consists of Paris cityscapes, history and genre paintings, and very few portraits. Unlike this painting, his genre paintings were strongly oriented towards 17th Century Dutch and Flemish genre scenes, and were especially reminiscent of David Teniers' tavern and festival scenes.

Sénave began his training with a canon at the abbey of his native town of Loo, and attended the painting academies in both Dunkirk and Saint Omer. In 1780 he came to Paris, where he studied under Joseph Benoît Suvée (1743-1807) and Jacques Louis David (1748-1825), who was considered to be the pre-eminent painter of the era. After presenting a painting of Rembrandt's studio depicting known figures from the Master's time, Sénave was appointed Honorary Dean of the Painting Academy of Ypres in 1821.

The sitter of this distinctive portrait is unidentified, but the book to which the viewer is drawn by his pointed finger, does tell us something about the sitter's beliefs: in this well-known didactic poem, Alteaergeheimnissen of 1645, the Catholic convert Joost van den Vondel expounded the doctrine of the Eucharist.