Portrait of Louis Royer (1793-1868), Sculptor

Louis Royer sits in his studio in a red fez, a hammer in his hand, among portrait busts and a figure of Christ of his own making. In the corner Charles van Beveren wrote Roma. In 1823 Royer had been the first sculptor to win the Dutch Prix de Rome, which King Willem I had revived, and he spent the next four years studying in Rome, where he made a portrait of Pope Leo XII. Van Beveren painted him in 1830, after Royer and his wife had come home, on a panel only 25 centimetres high.

Painter and sitter came from the same town, both born in Mechelen. Royer stayed in Amsterdam, and his best-known work is the statue of Rembrandt that has stood on the Rembrandtplein since 1852.