MyBaroque Self

Pre 20th century portraits by some idiot on the internet

[thebaroquehuman]

1650s Diana Russell, Lady Newport - Peter Lely vs Maria Giovanna Battista di Savoia-Nemours - Charles and Henri Beaubrun

Both Lely and the Beaubruns were the top portrait artists for their respective countries for a while, though Lely had a much lengthier stay at the top of the British art world than the Beaubruns, who already by the 1660s were losing popularity

Based on this pair of paintings, who was more deserving of their fame?

Peter Lely

Charles and Henri Beaubrun

Voting ended onMay 30

[thebaroquehuman]

Today, I'm going for red vs red with two ladies with their respective flowers

Portrait of a Lady - Italian school vs 1763 Petronila Mendez - Diego Antonio de Landaeta

One's from the Old world, the other from the New; one bold, the other pastel; one dark and shadowy, the other light and bright

Italian school

Diego Antonio de Landaeta

Voting ended onMay 29

[thebaroquehuman]

1752 Margaretha Eva Nicolasia Six -Theodorus Caenen vs Portrait of a Lady - Attributed to Giuseppe Bonito

So what do you prefer, blue or pink? smooth or painterly? Dramatical shadowing or not?

Theodorus Caenen

Possibly Giuseppe Bonito

Voting ended onMay 28

[thebaroquehuman]

This one is not actually my own attribution but I felt I had to share the opinion of an user of a site I used to frequent a while ago (Art Detective, super fun place, hope Art UK relaunches it), first because I highly agree with him, second I feel like I've found even better comparison pictures, and third it doesn't seem like many people have heard his opinion (and they need to!).

So I'll share it with the three people who'll (hopefully) read this.

The way Art Detective works is that someone will post about a picture from the Art UK website (official website for digital images of the UK's public art collections) looking for more information, this can be anything: date, artist, subject, provenance; and then the public (users of Art Detective) will offer opinions, once sort of a public concensus has been reached the manager of the site will decide if there is enough evidence and reach the museum that holds the specific work of art to see if they agree with the new .... anything (date, artist, subject, provenance, etc.).

On the 13th of September of 2016 a picture was posted to the site with the heading "Did Francis Cotes (1726–1770) paint this unidentified lady?"

The Lady in question.

The Cotes attribution was quickly abandoned, with people noting the seemingly earlier looking dress (1720s-30s as opposed to the decades when Cotes worked, 1760s-70s).

Attributions to Thomas Hudson, Joseph Highmore and George Knapton were proposed and soon abandoned due to differences in style.

Respectively Cotes, Hudson, Highmore, Knapton.

The discussion petered off and in 2023, when people were already suggesting its closure (and I believe around the time when Art Detective itself stopped working), a user by the name of Louis Musgrove made the suggestion of John Wollaston (British artist mainly known for his work on the colonies (US)).

Picture used by the user to illustrate the similarities "our sitter has a unusual smile and funny rings around the eyes.... This ladies dress is very similar in construction to our sitter. And the thick lines under the eyes. Just a thought "

Composite image

The suggestion was mostly ignored by the community (including, I admit, me) who instead focused on affirming that it was part of the British school (some users had suggested a French origin), and with that the discussion ended.

Link to orginal discussion: https://www.artuk.org/artdetective/discussions/discussions/did-francis-cotes-17261770-paint-this-unidentified-lady/group/portraits-british-18th-c

Myself, I was not particularly won over by the suggestion. Years later (2025) I decided for completely unrelated reasons to take a look at the work of John Wollaston. And I found this.

1749 Lucy Parry, wife of Admiral Parry

Composite.

Similar round faces with cow eyes and hieratic smiles, similar scoop necklines with separated breasts.

Similar hands and fingers, both resting on a surface!!!, similar depiction of lace.

Similar depiction of clothing folds.

Also Lucy's portrait (the Wollaston which more closely resembles our portrait) was painted before Wollaston left for the colonies, and it would make total sense for a portrait that was painted on Britain (as is most likely for a portrait in a British collection) to look more similar to other portraits from the British period of our painter.

It didn't immediately click, but once I had (again for completely unrelated reasons) taken another look at the whole discussion, the resemblance seemed unmistakable.

So I leave you here, much as Louis Musgrove said "just a suggestion". But if you do agree with Mr. Musgrove, be sure to make your agreement know to the authorities at Art Detective (if and when they come back obviously).

[thebaroquehuman]

On the many odd Jean-Marc Nattier paintings you may find on minor auction sites.

Much like many other french portraitists of the 18th century, Jean-Marc Nattier has sort of become a wastebasket taxon (to borrow the taxonomy term) for any 18th century portrait an auctioneer may be having trouble placing. This has lead to all sorts of portraits, be they french or not, named as "attributed to Jean-Marc Nattier", irrespective of how close (or far) the style of the artwork is to that of Nattier.

In that vein I present to you this lovely portrait of a Lady, auctioned in 2014 by Link Auction Galleries, with of course the prerequisite attribution "Attributed To Jean Marc Nattier, French", god forbid we have an anonymous portrait.

For those of you who are not familiar with the work of Jean-Marc Nattier, here's a small selection of his ouvre.

Of course for people not familiar with 18th century portraits that may not really mean anything.

Let's take a closer look

Immediately I think it's easy to see that the three portraits on the right side, share an extremely smooth finish and a predominance of pastel colors. Features not found on the portrait on the left, which is characterized by a more sketchy finish, a stronger delineation of the oval of the face and the use of high contrast coloring for the face

And since I think differences are better perceived through contrast, let's contrast with the following collage with artworks by Antoine Pesne.

In the three portraits by Antoine Pesne on the roght, in my opinion we see not only the bold colouring and somewhat less smoother finish, but also similarly drawn noses and mouths.

For the sake of fairness I have also included a similar collage with the works of Jean-Marc Nattier.

We also find somewhat similar looking hairstyles to that of the Link Auction portrait in other works by Antoine Pesne (ignore the middle portrait).

And though the ouvre of Jean-Marc Nattier also contains not dissimilar hairstyles, there still are differences in the way Nattier portrait facial features.

Presently I think it's much more likely for the authorship of the present portrait to found in Antoine Pesne or someone in his circle.

*some images may have been switched in orientation for easier comparison

[thebaroquehuman]

So a while ago, (let's say two years) I was browsing through my Facebook feed, I follow quite a lot of museum pages and among them is that of the Museum of San Carlos (in Mexico), and lo and behold they post a portrait apparently by the famed Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun.

Portrait of a Lady, 1795 - Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun?

Before even looking at the attribution I had already thought the style of the portrait reminded me of something. Seeing no particular reason to disagree with the attribution to Vigée Le Brun, I assumed I was probably being reminded of her artworks and moved on.

A while later... last year? I started to get interested in the work of late 18th century German portraitist Johann Friedrich August Tischbein, while browsing through artworks by him I started noticing that he had a .....type let's call it, bust portraits of women with direct gaze turned three quarters with a mainly white dress and a slight backwards head tilt.

1795 Henriette Gräfin von Egloffstein - Johann Friedrich August Tischbein.

Nothing particularly odd about it, white dresses were very popular in the late 18th century, three quarters is a very popular pose in portraiture, and if the head isn't set completely straight you've got to tilt it somewhere, but the conjunction of all characteristics together does create a sort of defined "look" in his portraits. Even the portraits which weren't busts often show the slight tilt.

1796 Self-portrait with family - Johann Friedrich August Tischbein.

Anyway going back to our supposed Vigée Le Brun, there was something about it that never quite convinced me (or maybe I'm just misremembering with the benefit of hindsight), the facial features looked off when comparing it to more famous Vigée Le Brun's, I had never seen hair texture quite like that on her portraits and even the clothes had started to look weird to me.

1782 Marie Joséphine of Savoy (switched to the right for easier comparison) - Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun

The texture of the hair in the portrait above is specially dissimilar due to different fashion styles in the 1780s and the 1790s, but I wanted to compare similar looking portraits, I'll later show how Vigée Le Brun depicted hair in the 1790s.

And one day purely by chance I started looking at my Vigée Le Brun pinterest board, just after I had looked at the Tischbein board. And I started noticing some pretty obvious (in my opinion) commonalities.

I have already spoken about the pose, but again poses similar to it are not rare by a longshot in portraiture history.

So let's talk about hair.

Portraits by Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun

It was hard to find Vigée Le Brun portraits from the middle of the 1790s as she tended to adorn the hairstyles in her portraits with ribbons, flowers and turbans that covered most of the hair, so we have two from the beginning of the decade, and you can see that instead of the loose clouds characteristic of the San Carlos portrait we have very defined curls.

And in a portrait of 1796, the hairstyle though looser shows still clearly defined strands of hair

In contrast portraits from the 1790s by Tischbein consistently depict hairstyles the same way as the San Carlos portrait

Also in this collage I think it's also easy to see the similarities in pose and shadowing.

To drive the point home here is a bigger collage also showing portraits by Vigée Le Brun. *Some portraits rotated for ease of comparison.

[thebaroquehuman]

Part 4.5 - Oddities

So perhaps I should have saved the portrait in group 4 for this part but I already discussed that one, so whatever, either way there is one more horrible, horrible inconsistently dated portrait.

This portrait of an unknown girl by Chiara Varotari has been dated to the 1640s, why? I have no clue. Hairstyle (with the exception of the horns), waistline and sleeves seem way more similar to the portraits in group 1 and 2, and no style I've seen in western and southern Europe looked anything like this in the 1640s.

And finally, for our last oddity let's look at perhaps our only securely dated and named portrait out of this series of posts

Tiberio Tinelli - 1635 Emilia Papafava Borromeo

Emilia Papafava Borromeo was a noblewoman coming from the city of Padua, then under rule of the Venetian republic, her style is definitely not Venetian, nor mainstream western European fashion, which goes to show just how much styles could differ from city to city, even cities under the same rule

And for one more look at the fashions of Padua, we have this other portrait attributed to Luca Ferrari around the 1630s

With this one I think we can see that the venetian influences reached at least the hair

[thebaroquehuman]

Part 3

The following group both by anonymous painters has not been dated, but the fashion is similar enough to the previous group with the exception of mostly the hair which has grown longer, and more adorned.

Group 7

The decolletage also seems to have climbed somewhat.

This next portrait is said to be Maria Leopoldine of Austria, which again raises the question, why would an Austrian archduchess have been painted in the venetian fashion so dissimilar from that of her own country?

Group 8

This portrait keeps the hairstyle of the previous two and the waistline is still extremely high, the sleeves though are closer to the mainstream European style, and the transparent fabric on her neck isn't covering the chest in a V shape anymore unlike all the previous portraits (similar styles of lace collar were also used in mainstream European fashion), the stomacher-like piece of fabric on the front of her dress is also a new addition.

The next two portraits have been dated to the 1630s, both by either Gerolamo Forabosco or Nicolas Régnier, the first is said to be Maria Caterina Farnese (though that is now in doubt), and the second sitter is unknown.

Group 9

The now fashion now is extremely close to the western European mainstream, with only the hairstyle remaining. Now is that because it's a later development? or is it simply another concurrent venetian fashion? or perhaps that of another city which had adapted and mixed the venetian styles with those emanating from other parts of Europe? Well if the first portrait is actually that of Maria Caterina Farnese that could point us in the right direction, but since that now is in doubt, much as most of the datings talked about in this post, it's still an open question.

Finally we have this portrait which I have already discussed on a previous post

It's said by the museum that it's Spanish and by Juan Carreño de Miranda, for reasons previously discussed I don't agree with that, I think is pretty obviously linked to the Venetian portraits I've been talking about.

Either way if we accept the premise that this last portrait is Venetian, the hairstyle is clearly linked to those of group 7, but the neckline approaches that of group 9, does that signal an intermediate form? Perhaps, perhaps not, the neckline is not a perfect example of that shown in group 9.

[thebaroquehuman]

Part 2

And now we make a big jump, the next dated portrait is dated to around 1625-1630. By the Venetian painter Gerolamo Forabosco it's said to be Contessa Ginevra Baglioni Lignani, who so far I've been unable to find any information on. There is a Baglioni family in Perugia, and a Lignani in Florence and Bologna, how is either of that linked to Venice? I've no idea, Bologna is somewhat close to Venice but I've no idea why a noblewoman from either of the other cities would have been painted by a Venetian painter in venetian dress.

Group 3

I'll group her with a group of anonymous women also painted by Gerolamo Forabosco all of them with similar dress and hairstyles to Ginevra.

Among the shared characteristics we find the very curly or frizzed hair, the plunging V neckline also seen in the earlier portraits, the extremely high waistline, and what seem to be pretty full sleeves.

And now we enter the horrible, horrible world of inconsistent dating, cause the next portrait we have is dated to 1659-1662, and yet it shows practically all the characteristics of the earlier discussed Forabosco portraits. Also of an unknown woman and also by Gerolamo Forabosco.

Group 4

The V shaped plunging neckline? there, the high waistline? Also there, full sleeves and very frizzy hair (though this one, is much, much more frizzy). We even have a similar looking necklace to one of our previous ladies.

So what do we do with that. We could either choose to believe that it was a fashion that spaned from the 1620s to the 1650s, or that one of the datings is wrong, either way until there's more data, it just a conjecture.

The next two ladies are treated separately, mostly because the fabric covering the bossom and making up the neckline seems to be translucent, similar to the three ladies from the beginning of the century; apart from that, their dress and hairstyle is most similar to the Forabosco's.

Group 5

Is it a variation? An intermediate style? I don't know, the outfits are also mostly black as in the portraits from the beginning of the century, which could point to them being an intermediate style, but I don't actually know.

We also have two other undated portraits; one anonymous and the other by Bernardo Strozzi, both in very similar outfits to the Forabosco's

Group 6

The first one has somewhat less full sleeves and the front of the hairstyle seems more square and pushed to the back. The Strozzi dress perhaps due to the age of the sitter seems to be much more simple than any of the previous ones.

[thebaroquehuman]

Part 1

Think of the wealthy early to mid 17th century European woman, the image that comes to mind is probably something close to a Dutch or English portrait, something akin to this

Low decolletage, high waistline, full sleeves

The way some people talk about this silhouette, you'd think that leaving aside the usual suspects (Russia did not adopt "German" styles until the 18th century, the European possessions and vassals of the Ottoman empire followed the lead of Constantinople, and most of eastern Europe was a patchwork of western and eastern influences), this was a pan-european feature and from Seville to Stockholm, aside from minor details you'd find this woman in every court, palace and castle. But Spain kept to it's own tune until the 18th century, German speaking areas were filled with odd collars and hats, and Italy was a mishmash of French and Spanish influences with native innovations that changed from city to city.

Is in this big wide world of 17th century modes, that we find Venice.

So far I've been unable to find any discussion, articles or books mentioning early 17th century fashions in Venice or the surrounding area, so I'll have to rely solely on paintings. That approach has a few disadvantages, often times portrait outfits were not realistic portrayals of every day dress but rather simplified or fantastical versions of it.

I'll be attempting to reconstruct the timeline of a series of portraits associated with Venice and it's surroundings. Since the majority are not dated or the dating is insecure, I'll try to avoid giving precise dates, and simply go from what I think are the earliest to the latest.

The first two portraits we're seeing are a pair of unknown ladies both by Leandro Bassano; one alone, the other accompanied by her daughters

Group 1

the one of the woman with her daughters is dated around 1595-1600, and due to the closeness in dress the other portrait may have been created around the same time.

Among the most prominent characteristics, we see the horned hairstyle, a feature prominent already in Venice for much of the late 16th century, though these seem to be higher and closer together than earlier examples, other features we see are the extremely low decolletage, the very high rounded waistline, the close sleeves with lace cuffs, and the lace? fabric covering the cleavage in V form with an open lace ruff.

The next anonymous portrait is dated late 16th century to early 17th century, shares the same outfit with our two earlier ladies with the exception of the horned hairstyle (perhaps a later modification?).

Group 2

[thebaroquehuman]

Part 4 - this' the timeline (hypothetical)

[thebaroquehuman]

This post delves into a particular trend that was very prominent in the 18th century, though you could find examples as far back as the 16th century, being portrayed as mythological figure was especially attractive to women, and amongst the most popular figures was the Roman goddess Diana. Two Dianas in pink, neither of the artists is particularly well know, but Jean Ranc may be a more recognizable name of you're into portraiture.

Jean Ranc - 1710-1715 Renée Tranchant du Trait en Diane and Jacques-François Delyen - 1724 Marie Catherine Le Franc de Courtagnon en Diane

One dog or two?

Renée Tranchant du Trait

Marie Catherine Le Franc de Courtagnon

Voting ended onFeb 19

[thebaroquehuman]

Today I'm going with the 19th century, with my two favorite 1850s blue ladies

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres - 1851-1853 La Princesse de Broglie and Federico de Madrazo - 1853 Amalia de Llano y Dotres, condesa de Vilches

One simple, the other elaborate, one solemn, the other joyful, both blue, which one do you choose?

Princesse de Broglie

Condesa de Vilches

Voting ended onFeb 24

[thebaroquehuman]

New Attribution!!!! .....by some idiot on the internet (me).

Portrait of the Honorable Horatio Townshend CIRCLE OF ALLAN RAMSAY (According to Christie's)

An ACTUAL Allan Ramsay - 1743 Katherine Hall of Dunglass

At first glance not that dissimilar right? And let's remember it's just circle of Allan Ramsay, which just means an artist that lived in the same era and had a similar style but also one that was highly influenced by him.

So let's do a comparison

I know they're mostly women, it's just hard to find male front-facing Ramsay's, but either way again not too dissimilar, but we do find commonalities between the confirmed Ramsay's that we just don't see in the portrait of Horatio (the corners of the mouth are much more defined in Horatio, while the hairstrands are clearer in the Ramsay's, the area of the chin in all of the Ramsay's is more harshly delineated, and in general the shadows in the face of Horatio are much more prominent).

Now let's look at my suggestion

Now this one is a little wild, as I have no idea of how Horatio would end up in Switzerland, but I suggest Johan Rudolf Huber (swiss portraitist mainly active in Bern).

First of all his subjects tend to have a very characteristic head tilt also found in Horatio

1710 - Portrait of a Lady and 1730 - Portrait of a Lady both by Huber

He also commonly uses a strongly delineated downward curve either thin or thick under the mount to represent the beginning of the chin, a feature we can also see in the portrait of Horatio, and that is completely lacking in the Ramsay portraits which instead use a difuse shadowed area. The corners of the mount are also very prominent and strongly shadowed in both the Huber's and the Horatio

We also in see in both the Huber's and the Horatio a dark spot on the center of the chin, though certainly that found on Horatio is much more prominent.

[thebaroquehuman]

Following the last post here we have two portraits that look alike

1622-1625 Probably Susanna Lunden, née Fourment - Peter Paul Rubens and 1782 Self portrait - Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun

The Vigée Le Brun is not a 1 to 1 copy of the Rubens, but she was inspired by it, after a trip to the low countries.

[thebaroquehuman]

I know I did say that Copley buckled the trend in not following the lead set by the prime British painters of his era, and I still feel that way, but that doesn't mean that there was zero influence.

1759-1762 Caroline, Duchess of Marlborough - Joshua Reynolds and 1763 Mrs. Jerathmael Bowers - John Singleton Copley

So here we have a portrait of the Duchess of Marlborough by Reynolds, and a later portrait of Mrs. Jerathmael Bowers by Copley in the same pose, dress and even with the same dog. It's definitely not the first instance of Copley having used an earlier portrait by other artist as a base, and Copley was certainly not alone in it. In the earlier 18th century you can find artists from Italy to Germany using poses first seen in the portraits of Hyacinthe Rigaud, and Hyacinthe Rigaud himself tended to reuse his own poses. Regardless Copley is somewhat unusual for the extreme fidelity that he held towards the original portrait.

So which one do you prefer? The original Reynolds? or the very inspired Copley?

Caroline, Duchess of Marlborough - Joshua Reynolds

Mrs. Jerathmael Bowers - John Singleton Copley

Voting ended onFeb 20

[thebaroquehuman]

An ocean apart... don't know if it's just me, but I find the work of John Singleton Copley and Joseph Wright of Derby oddly similar at times.

1760-1765 Mrs. William Chase - Joseph Wright of Derby and 1770 Mrs. William Coffin - John Singleton Copley

[thebaroquehuman]

And obviously they're both in the cultural area of the British empire, so they would have had some similarities, but still oddly similar (to me). Like maybe it's just that they still followed earlier trends of British portraiture instead of following the lead of Reynolds or Gainsborough, and that makes them look more similar by being the odd ones out idk.

1765 Mrs. Joseph Scott - John Singleton Copley and 1760 Mrs Lawrence Monck - Joseph Wright of Derby

1763 Mary Otis Gray - John Singleton Copley and 1760s Esther Ellison, née Walker - Joseph Wright of Derby