Portrait of Vincent Stochove.

Oil on canvas, 117 x 87 cm, dated at lower left corner "AETAT SUA 66. ANNO 1671" (darkened varnish, craquelé on varnish layer, lined canvas).

Under 19th-c. frame (sm. damages at some places).

Vincent Stochove (1605-1679), painted here at the age of 66, was one of the most significant political and cultural figures in seventeenth-century Bruges. On several occasions he was mayor of the city and member of many charitable institutions of his native town. Between 1630 and 1632 he traveled to Italy, the Ottoman Empire and the Levant, a voyage which he later recorded in a published travel diary (1643). Our portrait has been attributed to Jacob II Van Oost, who portrayed many prominent members of Bruges society. A second portrait of Stochove was made by Van Oost in 1674 as a commemoration to his post as dean of the St John Hospital, where the painting is still on show today (inv. O.SJ0089.I).
Ref. Meulemeester, "Jacob van Oost de Oudere en het zeventiende-eeuwse Brugge", Brugge 1984 (the Bruges portrait: pp. 129-132). - V. Stochove. - Voyage du sieur de Stochove faict les années 1630, 1631, 1632 [...]. Brussels, Velpius 1643.