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Two other by Orpen.
One with a light background and one dark.
I think that the choice of background is based on the needs of the painting, the background is there to emphasize the person.
If he had chosen the dark background behind the black suit it would have been a very dark painting.
For the same reason i think that Orpen left the lower painting in the vignette state and left some of the white canvas. That way he have the dark background to emphasize the head and the light canvas to secure that the general impression of the whole painting is not too dark.
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