A Collector in his Study

Venceslao Verlin (Wenceslaus Wehrlin) (1740 - Florence 1780) . Oil painting on canvas, A Collector in his Study, by Venceslao Verlin (alias Vinceslao Verlin) (1740 - Florence 1780), signed under harpsichord R. Wincesl. Wehrlin F./1768. The collector, (possibly from Tuscany, rather than Piedmont) dressed in a loose embroidered gown and turban, with a popinjay behind his right shoulder, sits in an armchair beside a keyboard instrument, amongst the impedimenta, including bronzes, engravings, a chinoiserie figure, of his artistic and scientific interests, whilst a putto blowing bubbles, and a number of other objects emblematic of human vanity, sit on the floor. Engravings after Watteau's Embarquement pour Cythere (1733) and La Mariee de village (1729) on the wall behind him suggest a choice between the distractions of love and an honest marriage. Gilt frame. Bambridge label on back. The artist was one ofthree artits sons of a Nuremberg painter-restrer, Johann Adams Wehrlin ( d. 1776), who made a acreer at the court of Turin after accopanying the former collection of Prince Eugen there in 1741, folowing its sale to King Carlo Emanuel III by Eugen's neice, Princess Victoria of Saxony-Hildenburghaisen. Wezeslaus was hisef appinted Court Portrait Painter seven mpths before his father's daeth in May 1776. This is eearlier tahn hsi for st recorded work 'Self-portrait holding a miniature of the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo of Tuscany', of 1771, in the Uffizi, Florence Wimpole, Cambridgeshire (Accredited Museum)