Half-length Portrait of a Bearded Man in Historical Dress. Artist: Richard Parkes Bonington (British, Arnold, Nottinghamshire 1802-1828 London). Dimensions: sheet: 11 x 9 3/16 in. (28 x 23.3 cm). Date: 1818-28.Bonington met Delacroix in 1825 who encouraged him to create historical genre subjects. Old master paintings were an important source of inspiration and Bonginton here uses brown wash to copy Rembrandt's "Portrait of an Old Man with a Stick and Beret" (Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, now attributed to a follower). Since he reverses the original, Bonington must have worked from a print, using brown wash in masterly fashion to capture a range of textures. In 1827 he introduced elements into his own watercolor, "Old Man and Child" (Wallace Collection, London). Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.