Portrait of Edward Stuart

In this portrait, Ashfield uses colored chalk mixed with opaque watercolor to create an image filled with various textures. He harnesses the medium’s friability (crumbliness) in the figure’s hair, in which light, swirling touches are added over a base that has been smoothed with a stump (a tool used for smudging) or finger. Its feathery softness contrasts with the stiff lace stock, its intricate folds described in painstaking detail with opaque white. Ashfield’s careful observation of the sitter’s clothing and features appears in the sparkling silver threads and the highlights in his eyes, which suggest a source of light falling from just slightly off-center (2022).