Photograph of a full length portrait of Jean François Portaels standing, facing front. He is posed with his right hand in his trouser pocket and his left hand holding a cane. A pair of glasses hang on a ribbon round his neck.

Portaels was a Belgian orientalist painter and director of the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. He was a very prolific and influential artist in Belgium. There is a pair of paintings of Silican women in the Royal Collection by him (RCIN 406231 and 406232).