#plumed hat

[portrait-paintings]

Self Portrait in a Straw Hat

Artist: Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (French, 1755-1842)

Date: c. 1782

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Collection: The National Gallery, London, United Kingdom

Description

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.

[paintingsandhistory]

Don Miguel de Castro, Emissary of Congo

Artist: Jaspar Beckx (Dutch, 1547-1647)

Date: c. 1643

Medium: Oil on panel

Collection: Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark

Portrait of Dom Miguel de Castro, Emissary of Congo

The painting is a portrait of Dom Miguel de Castro, a cousin of the Count of Sonho, who was sent as an envoy to the Dutch Republic to ask the Dutch stadtholder for mediation in a conflict the count had with King Garcia II of Kongo. The Dutch West India Company had conquered Loango-Angola in 1641 from the Portuguese, and they had heavily relied on the assistance of the Count of Sonho.

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.

[galleryofart]

The Persistent Reader

Artist: Lady Laura Theresa Alma-Tadema (British, 1852-1909)

Date: 19th century

Medium: Oil on panel

Collection: Private Collection

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.

[royalty-nobility]

Edward, Duke of Kent (1767-1820)

Artist: George Dawe (English, 1781-1829

Date: 1818

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Royal Collection Trust, London, United Kingdom

Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn

Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (Edward Augustus; 2 November 1767 – 23 January 1820) was the fourth son and fifth child of King George III and Queen Charlotte. His only child, Victoria, became Queen of the United Kingdom 17 years after his death.

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.

[royalty-nobility]

Wilhelm I, Prince of Prussia, later King of Prussia and German Emperor (1797-1888) 

Artist: Frederick Richard Say (English, 1804–1868)

Date: 1848

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Royal Collection Trust, London, United Kingdom

William I, German Emperor

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.

[royalty-nobility]

Portrait of Francis I of Austria

Artist: Thomas Lawrence (English, 1769-1830)

Date: 1818-1819

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Royal Collection Trust, London, United Kingdom

Description

This portrait of the Emperor of Austria was commissioned by George IV at a cost of 500 guineas. Lawrence ventured across Europe to undertake the King's commission of a group of portraits of the allied military and political leaders involved in the Napoleonic Wars. Although Lawrence met the Emperor during the Congresses of Aix-la-Chapelle and Vienna in 1818-9, the dates during which he undertook this painting itself are not known, as it remained in the artist's studio at his death in 1830.

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

[ohsresearchlibrary]

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