The Grand Tour" Portrait of a Gentleman with Carriage, circa 1780-1800

PROVENANCE 

"The Grand Tour: Portrait of a Gentleman"
Digital painting, 2024
Aliease Simmons

This distinguished work demonstrates Simmons' mastery of British sporting portraiture, a genre celebrating aristocratic leisure, travel, and refinement during the late 18th century.

The composition presents a young officer in military dress coat paused during his Grand Tour, the  transformative journey undertaken by wealthy young men through Europe's cultural centers. His traveling carriage, with its rich blue upholstery and brass fittings, suggests both status and adventure. The landscape behind him, rolling hills fading to distant peaks could be the English countryside, the Alpine passes, or the Italian lakes.

Simmons' work engages with the tradition of Grand Tour portraiture: Pompeo Batoni's aristocratic travelers in Rome, Joshua Reynolds' sporting gentlemen, George Romney's young nobles posed with the accoutrements of privilege. Where those masters worked from life, Simmons achieves comparable sophistication through digital means, creating what appears to be a lost masterwork from 1780-1800.

The officer's direct gaze carries both confidence and contemplation, he is a man between destinations, pausing to be immortalized before continuing his journey of education and experience. This is the moment when aristocracy becomes culture, when travel becomes transformation...

About the Medium: Created using AI generative tools under Simmons' artistic direction. Inquire for availability and acquisition details. Please see "How to Buy"

• Unframed: 48" × 72" (4' × 6')

• Framed: 56" × 80"