_Jacob van Oost the Elder_ (Flemish: 1600-1671).
This painter was born at Bruges, and his pictures are very
numerous in his native town. He painted principally religious
subjects in the style of the Carracci, whose works he had
studied in Italy. Of his portraits, this work--signed with his
monogram,[221] and dated 1650--is the best.
A boy of eleven--so the inscription on the right-hand corner
states--Mr. Pater's Sebastian van Storck, it might be.
"It was a winter scene, by Adrian van de Velde, or by Isaac van
Ostade.... Sebastian van Storck, confessedly the most graceful
performer in all the skating multitude moving in endless maze over
the vast surface of the frozen water-meadow, liked best this season
of the year for its expression of a perfect impassivity, or at least
of a perfect repose. The earth was, or seemed to be, at rest, with
a breathlessness of slumber which suited the young man's peculiar
temper.... Yet with all his appreciation of the national winter,
Sebastian was not altogether a Hollander. His mother, of Spanish
descent and Catholic, had given a richness of tone and form to the
healthy freshness of the Dutch physiognomy, apt to preserve its
youthfulness of aspect far beyond the period of life usual with other
peoples. This mixed expression charmed the eyes of Isaac van Ostade,
who had painted his portrait at one of those skating parties, with his
plume and squirrel's tail and fur muff, in all the modest pleasantness
of boyhood" (_Imaginary Portraits_, p. 92).