PERRONNEAU, Jean-Baptiste
(b. 1715, Paris, d. 1783, Amsterdam)

Portrait of a Man

1766
Oil on canvas
National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin

Unlike Maurice Quentin de La Tour, Perronneau was also an adept at using oil paint, achieving some of his best portraits in this medium. Outstanding is the Portrait of a Man of 1766 at Dublin, as pungent and penetrating as a Goya portrait. The hand is painted almost roughly; the lace is suggested rather than painstakingly detailed; and the clever, challengingly shrewd face twists round with disconcerting abruptness, as if defying the spectator to slip by.