Here is another important discovery made by the gallery, in this case looking beyond the erroneous, later inscriptions engraved on the back of this beautiful marble bust. The work is by the Flemish-born Michael Rijsbrack (Rysbrack), one of the foremost sculptors of monuments and portraits active in England during the first half of the eighteenth century. The attribution is confirmed by the artist's leading specialist, Dr David Wilson, in an extensive study devoted to the gallery's discovery. Based on documentary sources, Wilson advances a hypothesis regarding the identity of the sitter: according to his research, the bust may depict John Strahan, an architect and land surveyor active between Bristol and Bath. The conception and modelling of the portrait would appear to date to no later than 1732, the year in which George Vertue recorded a model of a bust of John Strahan in Rysbrack's studio. The marble version may therefore have been executed around or shortly after that date.