Featured HELP identify the charcter in this portrait

Hello guys,
for some reason this character looks familiar but i cant tell who that is.
Any thoughts?

Thanks!

 

Just a WAG but maybe Rasputin? Edit: I just Googled Rasputin and he had a full head of hair. So much for that thought.

 

A holy figure, I'd think. How about St. John the Baptist?

Debora

 

Wouldn't hurt to do a Google Images search. Might be a copy.

Debora

 

Tried..nada. cropped and tried again...nuthin.

 

Have you opened up the back of frame? No harm in doing so, I'd think.

Debora

 

Maybe the inspiration for "Brain" from the "Pinky and the Brain" cartoon?

 

Sorry..
Couldn't resist.

 

Our knee-jerk impression was that it was Lao Tzu. But yes, it's almost certainly meant to depict some Christian saint. Which one? Your choice. Another story:

Many years ago, a deeply religious friend asked one of us if he could do some art restoration work on an icon at our friend's Eastern Orthodox church. Might be a little out of his wheelhouse, he told our friend, wouldn't want to mess up some sacred relic, but I'll take a look at it. The friend brought over an oil portrait on a wooden panel, about 18x12", the saint's name in inch-high Cyrillic letters across the bottom. All he wanted done was to have the name of a different saint lettered there. Waitaminnit -- you can't have a portrait of this guy that your congregation prays to and just say Saint Eusebius is now Saint Nektarios, can you? Oh sure, no problem, he replies -- nobody knows what he really looked like anyway, he can be anybody.

 

That is probably a Franciscan monk. John the Baptist died in his 30s.

 

Not Rasputin for sure. This is Rasputin

 

Hmmmmm. In his younger day?

https://www.catholicgentleman.net/2013/07/gentleman-saint-st-francis-de-sales/


[Edit] ear, eyebrows and nose are a good match.... oh yeah, his hair or lack there of too.

 

Google is on a roll.