How you can use this image
This image can be used for non-commercial research or private study purposes, and other UK exceptions to copyright permitted to users based in the United Kingdom under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised. Any other type of use will need to be cleared with the rights holder(s).
Review the copyright credit lines that are located underneath the image, as these indicate who manages the copyright (©) within the artwork, and the photographic rights within the image.
The collection that owns the artwork may have more information on their own website about permitted uses and image licensing options.
Review our guidance pages which explain how you can reuse images, how to credit an image and how to find images in the public domain or with a Creative Commons licence available.
Buy a print or image licence
You can purchase this reproduction
If you have any products in your basket we recommend that you complete your purchase from Art UK before you leave our site to avoid losing your purchases.
Notes
Add or edit a note on this artwork that only you can see. You can find notes again by going to the ‘Notes’ section of your account.
These three men are probably the painter brothers Antoine, Louis and Mathieu Le Nain. Their noses and chins suggest a family resemblance, and the way that the central man stares out at us recalls the traditions of self portraiture. The costumes, with their broad collars, suggest a date of the late 1640s or early 1650s, but if this is a portrait of the brothers it cannot be later than 1648 – the year Louis and Antoine died. Their deaths may explain why the painting is unfinished. The artist probably worked from left to right, painting the faces first and then the shimmery satin jacket but not completing the other figures. The picture reveals part of an earlier composition: the head of a boy on the right and the colourful drapery emerged when later overpaint was removed.
Title
Three Men and a Boy
Date
about 1647-8
Medium
Oil on canvas
Measurements
H 54.1 x W 64.5 cm
Accession number
NG4857
Acquisition method
Presented by Mrs N. Clark Neill in memory of her husband, 1936
Work type
Painting
