#portraitist

The portraitist

Anna Bilińska-Bohdanowicz (Polish, 1854–1893) • Self-Portrait with Apron and Brushes • 1887

Tito Conti (Italian 1842-1924) • The Musician • Late 19th — early 20th century

Street painter

I've read that Louise Inches was expecting her third child when she sat for this portrait and that the dress had been designed to accommodate extra panels as her figure expanded. She and Sargent got on well. Both were music lovers and accomplished musicians.

Rembrandt Peale was sixty-two and a distinguished portraitist and history painter when he made this handsome self-portrait as a wedding gift for his second wife, the artist Harriet Cany Peale. Painting his first self-portrait at age thirteen, he completed at least a dozen during his long life. In this work, his meticulous execution and masterful rendering of light and shadow defines and illuminates his face, forehead, and silver curls, imparting a soft yet dramatic dimension to the picture.

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