The Laughing Cavalier (novel) of Sir Percy Blakeney, known to history as the Scarlet Pimpernel." EMMUSKA ORCZY <br>Haarlem, 1913 The Laughing Cavalier (novel) The Laughing Cavalier is a 1913 adventure novel by Baroness Orczy, which revolves around Percy Blake, a foreign adventurer and ancestor of Orczy's famous character, the Scarlet Pimpernel. The story takes place in Holland in 1623/1624 and is partly inspired by Frans Hals' painting "The Laughing Cavalier": in the novel, Blake is Frans Hals' adopted son and the man who poses for the painting of the Laughing Cavalier. The sequel to this book, continuing the story of Percy Blake, is "The
Laughing Cavalier Marquess of Hertford, who outbid Baron James de Rothschild at more than six times the sales estimate. It was in Hertford's Paris home in 1871, listed as "portrait d'un homme" ("portrait of a man"), and then brought to London, probably for the purpose of exhibiting it in a large and long loan exhibition of old master paintings at Bethnal Green, which was deliberately sited away from the West End of London to attract the working classes. The exhibition was a huge success and "A Cavalier" (the catalogue title) a particular hit with both public and the critics; it played a