Dimensions: support: 762 x 635 mm frame: 978 x 849 x 94 mm
Copyright: CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Editor: So here we have "George Puleston(?)" by John Souch, painted sometime before 1644. There's a formality to this portrait that makes me curious about what he wants us to see. How do you interpret this work? Curator: The formality is a performance, isn’t it? The lace, the gilded doublet—visual markers of status in a society obsessed with appearances. But look at the eyes, the slightly pursed lips. I feel a deep melancholy, a man trapped by the very trappings he displays. What do you think he's trying to hide? Editor: That's a really interesting angle. I was so focused on the showiness of it all! Curator: Portraits often reveal as much about the artist and the era as they do about the sitter. Perhaps Souch sensed this internal conflict and immortalized it. Editor: I'll definitely look at portraits differently now, thinking about what's hidden beneath the surface.
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Souch was a provincial artist who was apprenticed to the heraldic painter Randle Holme of Chester in 1607. His career can be charted from a small group of signed portraits of people from the region around Chester.The sitter was a member of the Puleston or Pilsdon family of Emral on the Welsh border. Above his slashed doublet he wears a black gorget, or piece of throat armour, which indicates that he is an officer. Over this lies a lace collar called a 'falling band' and Puleston grasps its tie-strings in his left hand. Gallery label, August 2004
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