I should like to hear from a specialist regarding the matter of the framing. There are numerous portraits by or attributed to Beale on ArtUK with very similar if not identical oval painted framing devices, though they may have been used by others in that period and I imagine could have been done by a "framer," so to speak, analogous to a drapery painter (as was the case with the well known "Birch heads" engraved by Houbraken in the 18th century, whose elaborate rococo frames were engraved by someone else, the Frenchman Gravelot). It is possible, therefore, that the discussion portrait is just another, later-life, rendering of him by her, as he looks older in it than he does in the other three images in the composite. If the above attributions are correct, it would appear that Mary Beale painted Thomas Sydenham at different periods in his life. The portrait on the extreme left of this composite is also of Thomas Sydenham, and also by Mary Beale, from the Royal College of Physicians, London, collection. The portrait to the right of this composite is also of Thomas Sydenham, and also by Mary Beale, from the National Portrait Gallery's collection. The engraving was published as the frontispiece in a later edition of Sydenham's "Observationes Medicinae". The treatment of the long locks in the discussion portrait is very similar to that as shown in the engraving by Abraham Blooteling (1634 - 1690), from, as stated, a Maria (sic) Beale portrait. The sitter in this portrait might be the English physician Thomas Sydenham (1624 - 1689)? A composite of known images of Sydenham is attached for collective consideration.
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