Portrait of a Young Man

This drawing is a rediscovery. Its authorship had been forgotten, but an exhibition label on the back of the old frame provided the clue that led to records at the University of Connecticut. There we discovered that this portrait is by the British artist Val Prinsep. Dated December 7, 1860, it was executed when the artist was living in Rome. The sitter in the portrait does not resemble any of Prinsep's known travel companions in Italy—such as the painters Edward Burne-Jones or Jacques Emile Edouard Brandon, or the poet Robert Browning—but perhaps the young man will one day be identified, most likely among Prinsep's many fellow student artists in Rome.