Tête-à-Tête

Facing each other in profile, these two young boys are brothers and possibly even twins. According to a faded and incomplete inscription on the reverse of the frame they are Louis and Charles de Passe (or Rasse?), the sons of Baron de Passe/Rasse.

The style of the boys’ coat with its stand fall collar and large buttons was fashionable in England during the 1780s and would have been adopted from the earlier French fashion. Likewise it was fashionable for boys to wear their hair long and loose at this time.

Painted in watercolour on vellum, the portrait is housed in a later gold plated frame.