A Knight of the Seventeenth Century

John Pettie's A Knight of the Seventeenth Century (1877) belongs to the Scottish painter's sustained interest in historical costume and period subjects — an engagement that made him one of the most popular contributors to Royal Academy exhibitions in the 1870s. Pettie's knights, cavaliers, and soldiers in period dress offered Victorian audiences the pleasures of historical romance combined with genuine painterly bravura. The seventeenth century — with its Civil War associations, cavalier panache, and dramatic portraiture — was among the most favored historical periods for Victorian costume painters.

Pettie applies paint with considerable verve and freedom — his historical costume subjects are characterized by rich impasto and confident, gestural brushwork that gives armour, fabric, and accessories vibrant textural reality. His color sense is strong, with warm reds and silvers creating the visual drama his subjects require.