Portrait of Raden Syarif Bustaman Saleh

The work is executed in oil paint on canvas, a standard combination for mid-nineteenth-century European portraiture. According to the catalogue record, the canvas measures 106.7 cm in height by 85.3 cm in width, a vertical format suited to a half- or three-quarter-length seated figure.

Stylistically, the composition presents the sitter in the act of painting: he wears a painter's smock and holds a palette in his left hand while his right hand grasps a brush, leaning on a maulstick. This self-reflexive motif, a painter shown painting, is characteristic of artist portraits of the period and lends the canvas a deliberately informal, working-air quality rather than a formal pose.

No information on the painting's present condition, conservation history, or specific handling of paint (such as glazing, impasto, or underdrawing) is provided in the available sources.

The painting was created in 1840 by Friedrich Carl Albert Schreuel, who was active in Dresden during the sitter's visit there. The subject, the Javanese painter Raden Syarif Bustaman Saleh, had studied in The Hague in the 1830s and departed on a European tour in 1839, arriving in Dresden around 1840, where the portrait is presumed to have been made. The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam attributes the work to Schreuel, though staff at the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie have proposed an attribution to Saleh himself, treating it as a possible self-portrait.

The work entered the Rijksmuseum's collection in April 1978, purchased for 8,022.98 guilders from Reinhold Wimmers-Sonderegger in Wachtberg-Niederbachem.

The painting is held by the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, where it is inventoried as object number SK-C-1192.

Its exhibition history is limited to the moment of acquisition: it was purchased in April 1978 from Reinhold Wimmers-Sonderegger (Wachtberg-Niederbachem) for 8,022.98 Dutch guilders.

The work occupies a complex position in art historical discourse due to conflicting attributions regarding its creator. While the Rijksmuseum officially ascribes the 1840 portrait to the Dutch painter Friedrich Carl Albert Schreuel, who was active in Dresden during the sitter's European travels, the RKD (Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie) attributes it to Raden Saleh himself, suggesting it may be a self-portrait. This scholarly disagreement highlights the work's significance as a visual record of Saleh's time in Europe, where he studied in The Hague during the 1830s before traveling through the continent.

The painting depicts the artist in a dressing gown holding a palette and brush, capturing a moment of his professional life around 1840. Its acquisition by the Rijksmuseum in 1978 further cemented its status as a key artifact documenting the cross-cultural artistic exchanges of the period.

This oil painting, created in 1840, is a portrait of Raden Syarif Bustaman Saleh, an Indonesian nobleman. It is the work of Friedrich Carl Albert Schreuel, a Dutch-born painter.