754 - Portrait of the Electoral Trier Privy Councillor Franz Joseph von Umbscheiden, Baroque

Portrait of the Electoral Trier Privy Councillor Franz Joseph von Umbscheiden, Baroque Oil on canvas, relined, on a stretcher. Unsigned. Inscribed lower right in gold „FRANZ IOSEPH VON UMBSCHEIDEN CHUR TRIERISCHER GEHEIMER RATH UND CAMER DIRECTOR", beneath it the dates of his life with the year of birth 1633 and the year of death 1716; above it a shield with an interlaced monogram in gold. Half-length portrait of an elderly gentleman against a dark ground, turned slightly to the right, with long greying hair and a fine moustache; he wears a white, broadly knotted neckcloth over a dark coat, and over that a heavy brocade mantle patterned in gold falling across both shoulders. Condition commensurate with age, retouching, craquelure, losses of paint, the corners partly loose or with losses to the canvas. Image 79.5x62.5 cm (HxW). Unframed The Electorate of Trier was one of the three ecclesiastical electorates of the Holy Roman Empire; the privy council was the elector's highest advisory body, and the chamber director headed the financial administration. An office holder of this rank had himself portrayed in a brocade mantle as befitted his station. The plain white neckcloth in place of a wig and the sober treatment of the head point to an execution in the early 18th c. Portraits with a fully written out inscription giving office and dates frequently come from ancestral galleries, in which the succession of forebears was labelled with name and title.