A portrait the record does not name

The record dates Portrait of a Man to 1887 and leaves the sitter unnamed. That is worth stating plainly, because 1887 is the year the catalogue starts naming people: seven titles dated 1887 begin with the words portrait of, against four dated 1885 and no dated 1886. Where the record gives no name, this page gives none.

What the record gives

The work is held by the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, which holds one entry in this catalogue. No dimensions are recorded. The measured palette reads as green and yellow.

The most common measurement in the catalogue

Green and yellow together are the most frequent reading across all 610 works here, and the pairing is a late one: green dominates twelve works dated 1885 and twenty-five dated 1887, then sixty-five dated 1888. A portrait measured this way in 1887 sits at the front of that movement. The catalogue is arranged by period because measurements like this one are legible only in sequence: a single card says nothing on its own, and a run of years says something.