Portrait of a gentleman in a red velvet jacket, white stock and long curled wig, seated, three-quarter length, holding a book oil on canvas, in a foliate carved 18th century frame 74 x 62cm Footnote: Provenance: Mr Ward, Blewbury, Berkshire; Private Irish Collection, Cheffins, Cambridge, The Sir John Plumb Sale, 14 May 2002, lot 61, where acquired by the present owner The sitter is holding a book labelled 'Sydenham', which is a reference to Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689), the famous physician known as the 'English Hippocrates'. Among his other works, Sydenham notably wrote Observationes Medicae, which became the standard textbook of medicine for two centuries. The presence of a book by Sydenham would suggest that the sitter was a physician.