#plumed hat

Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, the daughter of a minor painter, Louis Vigée, was born and brought up in Paris. She became a member of the Académie de St-Luc in 1774 and of the French Academy in 1783. She was a highly fashionable portrait painter, patronized particularly by Queen Marie Antoinette. Between 1789 and 1805 she travelled in Europe and visited Russia.

This painting depicts Don Quixote attempting to convince the frustrated Barber that his basin is Mambrino’s helmet: an impoverished man stands with his arms outstretched, eyes looking skyward. Another man in fine clothes - plumed hat, plush cape and pale blue suit holds the basin/hat. Another man holding a spear and wearing armour prevents a portly man from moving forward. The group of four onlookers includes a priest and someone holding a letter. This scene is taken from the Spanish novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes from 1605.

Dom Miguel de Castro travelled with a few servants to the Dutch Republic via Dutch Brazil, where they had been received by Governor John Maurice, Prince of Nassau-Siegen. On 19 June 1643, Dom Miguel de Castro arrived in Flushing, where he was received by three directors of the Zealand chamber of the Dutch West India Company, and who provided him with accommodation in Middelburg. Eventually he was sailed by yacht to The Hague on 2 July 1643, where he had an audience with stadtholder Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange.

This is nowhere more obvious than in The persistent reader, where the figures are pictured in a stylized 17th Century Dutch interior wearing period costumes. The cropped composition, the windowed light source, as well as the saturated colors are reminiscent of Johannes Vermeer, whose paintings Laura had studied on her trips to Holland. The artist's masterful use of light and texture can be observed in the reflections on the chandelier, the luxurious sheen of the lady's satin dress and the opulent whites of the reader's collar, cuffs and pages of the open book. Alma-Tadema's use of intense color is particularly notable in the crimson red on the fore-edge of the reader's book that draws the viewer into the picture as the reader is to his studies. The young man appears to be more engrossed in his book than in the visit of the charming young lady, to her visible ennui.

Prince Edward was created Duke of Kent and Strathearn and Earl of Dublin on 23 April 1799 and, a few weeks later, appointed a General and commander-in-chief of British forces in the Maritime Provinces of North America. On 23 March 1802, he was appointed Governor of Gibraltar and nominally retained that post until his death. The Duke was appointed Field-Marshal of the Forces on 3 September 1805.

William I (Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig; 22 March 1797 – 9 March 1888), or Wilhelm I, was King of Prussia from 1861 and German Emperor from 1871 until his death in 1888. A member of the House of Hohenzollern, he was the first head of state of a united Germany. He was head of state of Prussia from 1858, when he became regent for his brother Frederick William IV. During the reign of his grandson Wilhelm II, he was known as Emperor William the Great.

The Emperor is shown in military uniform with his plumed hat on a table beside him; the riband and star of the Order of the Garter worn under that of the Golden Fleece. In addition to enabling him to render details of military dress with accuracy, the artist attached particular importance to capturing his sitters from life, in order to imbue a sense of liveliness. The Emperor’s countenance, he described as 'rather long and thin, and when grave, is grave to melancholy; but when he speaks, benevolence itself lights it up with the most agreeable expressions, and making it the perfect image of a good mind.’ (letter of 5 November 1818).The conception of this group of twenty-eight portraits began in 1814 when George IV

unidentified woman, c. 1880, Partridge Photo Co., Portland, OR Costume Collection, Org. Lot 503, Box 1, Folder 8