Recently rediscovered, the present portrait depicts Mary Emma Jones, Emma's sister-in-law, who modeled for many of Frederick's works including Perdita (Lloyd Webber Collection) and Proud Maisie (Victoria & Albert Museum). This portrait bears all the hallmarks of Emma's mature style, and shows the level of sophistication the genre achieved during the 1860s and 1870s.
Francesco Foscari (1373 – 1457) was the 65th Doge of the Republic of Venice, serving from 1423 until his death in 1457. His reign of 34 years, 6 months, and 8 days was the longest in Venetian history.
Collection: National Gallery of Parma, Parma, Italy
Elisabeth Farnese
Elisabeth Farnese (1692 – 1766) was Queen of Spain by marriage to King Philip V. She was the de facto ruler of Spain from 1714 until 1746, since she managed the affairs of state with the approval of her spouse. She is particularly known for her great influence over Spain's foreign policy. From 1759 to 1760, she governed as regent.
Medium: Pencil, watercolour and bodycolour heightened with gum arabic on paper
Collection: Private Collection
Portrait of Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri (c. May 1265 – September 14, 1321), widely known mononymously as Dante, was an Italian poet, writer, and philosopher. His Divine Comedy, originally called Comedìa (modern Italian: Commedia) and later christened Divina by Giovanni Boccaccio, is widely considered one of the most important poems of the Middle Ages and the greatest literary work in the Italian language.
Dante chose to write in the vernacular, specifically, his own Tuscan dialect, at a time when much literature was still written in Latin, which was accessible only to educated readers, and many of his fellow Italian poets wrote in French or Provençal. His De vulgari eloquentia (On Eloquence in the Vernacular) was one of the first scholarly defenses of the vernacular. His use of the Florentine dialect for works such as The New Life (1295) and Divine Comedy helped establish the modern-day standardized Italian language. His work set a precedent that important Italian writers such as Petrarch and Boccaccio would later follow.
Dante was instrumental in establishing the literature of Italy, and is considered to be among the country's national poets and the Western world's greatest literary icons. His depictions of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven provided inspiration for the larger body of Western art and literature. He influenced English writers such as Geoffrey Chaucer, John Milton, and Alfred Tennyson, among many others. In addition, the first use of the interlocking three-line rhyme scheme, or the terza rima, is attributed to him. He is described as the "father" of the Italian language, and in Italy he is often referred to as il Sommo Poeta ("the Supreme Poet"). Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio are also called the tre corone ("three crowns") of Italian literature.
