A Boy with a White Cravat

Sometimes you fall in love with paintings – this happens to us regularly. That was certainly true for both Ilone and myself in the case of Michaelina Wautier’s Boy with a white cravat. This work of an attractive young boy very much reminds us of Michael Sweerts’ tronies of boys and girls. We do not know the exact nature of their relationship but clearly the affinity between their depictions of individual boys is unmistakable. Before 1646 (when Sweerts left for Italy) they both lived in Brussels and Michaelina would have had access to work by Sweerts after settling there around 1640.