11 Paintings, PORTRAIT OF A LADY, with Footnotes. # 20

HOWARD CHANDLER CHRISTY, American (1873-1952)

Portrait of a Lady, c. 1902

Oil on canvas

73 1/2 x 36 inches

Private Collection

Howard Chandler Christy (January 10, 1872 – March 3, 1952) was an American artist and illustrator, famous for the "Christy Girl" -- a colorful and illustrious successor to the "Gibson Girl" -- who became the most popular portrait painter of the Jazz Age era. Christy painted such luminaries as Lt. Col. Theodore Roosevelt, and Presidents Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Roosevelt, and Truman. Other famous people include William Randolph Hearst, the Prince of Wales (Edward the VIII), Eddie Rickenbacker, Benito Mussolini, Prince Umberto, Amelia Earhart. From the 1920s until the 1940s, Christy was well known for capturing the likenesses of congressmen, senators, industrialists, movies stars, and socialites. More Howard Chandler Christy 

Auguste Toulmouche, (French, 1829-1890)

Admiring her looks, c.  1881

Oil on canvas

25 3/4 x 18 1/4in (65.4 x 46.4cm)

Private Collection

Auguste Toulmouche (September 21, 1829 – October 16, 1890) was a French painter who painted in the academic realism style.  He studied design with a local sculptor and painting with a local portraitist.  In 1846, he moved to Paris.  There he entered the studio of Swiss artist Charles Gleyre and, by 1848, was ready to make his Salon debut.  He was only nineteen years old. He won a third class medal in 1852 and a second class medal in 1861.  In 1870, he was awarded the Legion of Honour.

Toulmouche is best known for his depictions of richly clad women set against the backdrop of luxurious interiors.  His paintings have been called “elegant trifles” and the ladies who feature in them have been referred to as “Toulmouche’s delicious dolls.”  One critic even compared the interiors of a Toulmouche painting to daintily decorated jewel boxes.  

In 1862, Toulmouche married a cousin of Claude Monet.  This alliance led to his being asked to mentor the young Monet.

Auguste Toulmouche died in Paris on October 16, 1890.  Those paintings of his that are not now in private collections can be found hanging in some of the finest museums in the world. More Auguste Toulmouche

JULIEN DUPRE (studio of) French (1851-1910)

Haying

Oil on canvas

18 x 21 1/2 inches

Private Collection

Julien Dupré (March 18, 1851 – April 16, 1910) was a French painter. He was born in Paris on March 18, 1851 to Jean Dupré (a jeweler) and Pauline Bouillié and began his adult life working in a lace shop in anticipation of entering his family's jewelry business. The war of 1870 and the siege of Paris forced the closure of the shop and Julien began taking evening courses at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs and it was through these classes that he gained admission to the École des Beaux-Arts.

In the mid-1870s he traveled to Picardy and became a student of the rural genre painter Désiré François Laugée (1823–1896), whose daughter Marie Eléonore Françoise he would marry in 1876; the year he exhibited his first painting at the Paris Salon.

Throughout his career Dupré championed the life of the peasant and continued painting scenes in the areas of Normandy and Brittany until his death on April 16, 1910. More

Gustav Klimt (1862–1918)

Portrait of Emilie Louise Flöge, c. 1902

Oil on canvas

181 × 84 cm (71.3 × 33.1 in)

Vienna Museum

Emilie Louise Flöge (30 August 1874 in Vienna – 26 May 1952 in Vienna) was an Austrian fashion designer, and businesswoman. She was the life companion of the painter Gustav Klimt.

Her first job was as a seamstress, but she later became a couturière. In 1895, Pauline, her elder sister, opened a dressmaking school and Emilie worked there. In 1899 the two sisters won a dressmaking competition.

After 1891, Klimt portrayed her in many of his works. Experts believe that his painting The Kiss (1907–08) shows the artist and Emilie Flöge as lovers (below). Klimt was painting many ladies from the upper echelons of Viennese society and thus, was able to introduce Emilie Flöge to a prosperous client base. More Emilie Louise Flöge

Gustav Klimt (1862–1918)

The Kiss, c. 1907–1908

Oil on canvas

180 × 180 cm (70.9 × 70.9 in)

Austrian Gallery Belvedere, Vienna, Austria.

Gustav Klimt (July 14, 1862 – February 6, 1918) was an Austrian symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. Klimt is noted for his paintings, murals, sketches, and other objets d'art. Klimt's primary subject was the female body, and his works are marked by a frank eroticism. In addition to his figurative works, which include allegories and portraits, he painted landscapes. Among the artists of the Vienna Secession, Klimt was the most influenced by Japanese art and its methods.

Early in his artistic career, he was a successful painter of architectural decorations in a conventional manner. As he developed a more personal style, his work was the subject of controversy that culminated when the paintings he completed around 1900 for the ceiling of the Great Hall of the University of Vienna were criticized as pornographic. He subsequently accepted no more public commissions, but achieved a new success with the paintings of his "golden phase," many of which include gold leaf. More Gustav Klimt

MARTHA SUSAN BAKER, American (1871-1911)

Bessie McCoy, Insouciance (Carefree), c. 1906

Oil on canvas

44 x 30 inches

Private Collection

Martha Susan Baker, American, 1871 - 1911, both studied and taught at the Art Institute of Chicago and was world-renowned particularly for her miniature paintings on ivory (An example of which is in the Louvre, below).

MARTHA SUSAN BAKER, American (1871-1911)

Mademoiselle / Martinet, c. 1911

Ivory

H. in m 0.122; L. in m 0.090

Musée du Louvre

Unfortunately, in 1911, Miss Baker contracted appendicitis and died at the young age of 39. At the time of Baker's death and at the height of her career, the artist had been commissioned to paint a portrait of President Taft. Her murals can be found in the Fine Arts Building in Chicago. More Martha Susan Baker

Edouard Vuillard, 1868 - 1940

Lucy Hessel Reading, 1913

Oil on canvas

The Jewish Museum, New York

Madame Lucy Hessel, was the artist’s protectress over a period of some forty years.  In a deep blue velvet jacket, she is pictured studying books and papers.  To the upper-right, above the fireplace, is a mirror, reflecting an open window and the garden beyond.  The setting is likely the country house in Normandy where Vuillard was a frequent guest of the Hessels.  The closeness of their relationship is emphasized by the striking fact that the subject is caught within her private domain at an intimate and informal moment, suggestive at the same time of Vuillard’s admiration for earlier French (Fragonard) and Dutch (Vermeer) masters of the interior. More Madame Lucy Hessel

Jean-Édouard Vuillard (11 November 1868 – 21 June 1940) was a French painter and printmaker associated with the Nabis. The son of a retired captain, he spent his youth at Cuiseaux (Saône-et-Loire); in 1878 his family moved to Paris in modest circumstances. After his father's death in 1884, Vuillard received a scholarship to continue his education. In the Lycée Condorcet Vuillard met Ker Xavier Roussel (also a future painter and Vuillard's future brother in law), Maurice Denis, musician Pierre Hermant, writer Pierre Véber, and Lugné-Poe.

Vuillard was a member of the Symbolist group known as Les Nabis (from the Hebrew and Arabic term for "prophets" and, by extension, the artist as the "seer" who reveals the invisible). However, he was less drawn to the mystical aspects of the group and more drawn to fashionable private venues where philosophical discussions about poetry, music, theatre, and the occult occurred. Because of his preference for the painting of interior and domestic scenes, he is often referred to as an "intimist," along with his friend Pierre Bonnard. He executed some of these "intimist" works in small scale, while others were conceived on a much larger scale made for the interiors of the people who commissioned the work. More Jean-Édouard Vuillard

ÈMILE EISMAN-SEMENOVSKY, 1857 Poland - Paris 1911 (attr.)

Oriental Beauty

Oil on panel

27 cm x 21 cm

Private Collection

Émile Eisman-Semenowsky (* 1859 in Poland , † 1911 in France ) was a French painter of Polish descent.

There are very few documented sources on Émile Eisman-Semenovsky's biography. He was born in the part of Poland annexed by Russia. He emigrated early, studied painting outside Poland. At the beginning of the 1880s he came to Paris and became known here as a painter of sentimental women's portraits. He worked as an assistant to Jan van Beers. Apart from the numerous women's portraits, he created a few genre and nude pictures. His paintings were adapted to the taste of the French bourgeoisie. Many works were portrayed as women of the Middle East or the ancient world. In France he was attributed to Polish or Russian painters. More Émile Eisman-Semenowsky

MARCEL DYF, French (1899-1985)

Jeune Femme Rousse/ Young Red Head

Oil on canvas

21 1/2 x 18 1/4 inches

Private Collection

Marcel Dyf (1899–1985) was a French impressionist painter. He was born as Marcel Dreyfus on October 7, 1899 in Paris. He grew up in Normandy, in the towns of Ault, Deauville and Trouville. He started a career as an engineer, but soon decided to become a painter. In 1922, he moved to Arles, where he was trained as a painter and set up a studio.

He painted frescoes in the cityhalls of Saint-Martin-de-Crau and Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. He also painted frescoes in the Museon Arlaten and in the dining hall of the Collège Ampère, both of which are in Arles. He also designed windows inside the Église Saint-Louis in Marseille.

In 1935, he moved to Maximilien Luce's old studio on the Avenue du Maine in Paris. By 1940, because of the German invasion of France during the Second World War, he returned to Arles. He quickly joined the French Resistance in Corrèze and the Dordogne. He later moved back to Paris, and finally moved in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. However, in the 1950s, he started wintering in Paris and summering in Cannes, where he attracted the attention of American art collectors. More

Marc Chagall, (French, Vitebsk 1887–1985 Saint-Paul-de-Vence)

Marc ChagallBride with Fan, c. 1911

Oil on canvas

18 x 15 in. (45.7 x 38.1 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Marc Chagall conjured up his native Russia in the works he painted from 1910 to 1914 while he was living in the French capital. Similarly, in the small painting The Betrothed, he evoked his far-away fiancée Bella Rosenfeld, whom he would marry in 1915 upon his return to Vitebsk, Russia. The picture's palette of only blue and white is unusual within the artist's oeuvre, yet the brighter colors showing through the white paint suggest that Chagall reused an old canvas. Pierre Matisse, the son of artist Henri Matisse, had coveted the works of Chagall since 1924, when he first met the artist in Paris. Chagall was loath to part with his work, but in 1941 Pierre, who then owned an art gallery in New York, was able to mount an exhibition of Chagall's work that became a "blockbuster"; this was followed by sixteen more exhibitions at the gallery through 1982. More Bride with Fan

Marc Zakharovich Chagall (1887 – 28 March 1985)was a Russian-French artist. An early modernist, he was associated with several major artistic styles and created works in virtually every artistic medium, including painting, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramic, tapestries and fine art prints.

Chagall saw his work as "not the dream of one people but of all humanity. According to art historian Michael J. Lewis, Chagall was considered to be "the last survivor of the first generation of European modernists". Using the medium of stained glass, he produced windows for the cathedrals of Reims and Metz, windows for the UN, and the Jerusalem Windows in Israel. He also did large-scale paintings, including part of the ceiling of the Paris Opéra.

Before World War I, he traveled between St. Petersburg, Paris, and Berlin. During this period he created his own mixture and style of modern art based on his idea of Eastern European Jewish folk culture. He spent the wartime years in Soviet Belarus, becoming one of the country's most distinguished artists and a member of the modernist avant-garde, founding the Vitebsk Arts College before leaving again for Paris in 1922.

He experienced modernism's "golden age" in Paris, where "he synthesized the art forms of Cubism, Symbolism, and Fauvism, and the influence of Fauvism gave rise to Surrealism". "When Matisse dies," Pablo Picasso remarked in the 1950s, "Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what colour really is" More Marc Chagall

Wojciech Weiss, (Polish, 1875-1950)

Portrait of Maria Skrzywan in Spanish costume, c. 1946

Oil on canvas

31 3/4 x 25 3/4in (80.5 x 65.5cm)

Private Collection

Maria Skrzywan (born 1900 in Kordelówka, near Winnica , died 1978 ) was a Polish psychologist, the first dean of the Faculty of Pedagogy at the University of Warsaw , founded in 1953.

She graduated from a Polish grammar school in Kiev. Then undertook legal studies at the University of Warsaw, which she changed to psychology. Since 1928 she was an assistant professor. In 1931, she was awarded a doctoral degree by prof. Wladyslaw Witwicki. She lectured at the Warsaw University conducting classes in educational and development psychology.

During World War II she participated in secret teaching, was arrested and imprisoned. After the war she organized the first university psychological studies in Poland and created the first textbook for students. She was the editor of the editorial staff of "Educational Psychology". After the death of prof. Baleya took the position of head of the Chair of Educational Psychology at the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Warsaw . In 1955 she became a professor.

She was the promoter of her doctoral thesis, Anna Matczak , promoting the award of honorary doctorate of the University of Warsaw to the French psychologist Jean Piaget on 14 May 1958.


She died on April 23, 1978. More Maria Skrzywan

Wojciech Weiss (4 May 1875 – 7 December 1950) was a prominent Polish painter and draughtsman of the Young Poland movement. He was born in Bukovina to a Polish family in exile . He gave up music training to study art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków under Leon Wyczółkowski. Weiss originally painted historical or mythological paintings, but later switched to Expressionism after being profoundly influenced by Stanisław Przybyszewski. Weiss later became a member of the Vienna Secession. He was one of the first Polish Art Nouveau poster designers. Near the end of his life, he made several significant contributions to paintings of the Socialist realism in Poland. More Wojciech Weiss 

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10 Paintings, PORTRAIT OF A LADY, with Footnotes. # 17

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919)

La bohémienne (Lise Tréhot), c. 1868

Oil on canvas

Height: 85 cm (33.5 in). Width: 59 cm (23.2 in).

Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery) in Berlin

Lise Tréhot was Renoir's companion from about 1866 to 1871. He painted her at least 23 times, including Lise with a parasol (below) , painted in 1867, Renoir's first significant critical success which was admired at the Paris Salon in 1868. This success may have inspired Renoir to paint her again, this time in a more informal style.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, (1841–1919)

Lise with Umbrella, c. 1867

Oil on canvas

184 × 115 cm (72.4 × 45.3 in)

Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany

The painting takes inspiration from the Romantic paintings of Eugène Delacroix, particularly his 1823 painting Orphan Girl at the Cemetery (below) in which the subject's bodice also hangs off on one shoulder, and also the Realist works of Gustave Courbet (below). It is an example of a transition in Renoir's style from more formal studio painting to a looser Impressionist style. It was exhibited at the Salon de Paris in 1869 under the title En été, étude, with the word "étude" (French for "study") added to deflect criticism of the loose, impressionistic style of the background, which was not as highly finished as a completed salon painting (or tableau), such as his Lise with a parasol. More La bohémienne

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, commonly known as Auguste Renoir (25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919), was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to Watteau."

He was the father of actor Pierre Renoir (1885–1952), filmmaker Jean Renoir (1894–1979) and ceramic artist Claude Renoir (1901–69). He was the grandfather of the filmmaker Claude Renoir (1913–1993), son of Pierre. MorePierre-Auguste Renoir

Hugène Delacroix, (1798–1863)

Jeune orpheline au cimetière, c. 1824

Orphan Girl at the Cemetery

Height: 0.65 m (0.7 yd). Width: 0.55 m (0.6 yd).

Louvre Museum

Believed to be Delacroix's preparatory work in oil for the his later Massacre at Chios, Orphan Girl at the Cemetery is nevertheless considered a masterpiece in its own right. An air of sorrow and fearfulness emanates from the picture, and tears well from the eyes of the grief-stricken girl as she looks apprehensively upward. The dimness of the sky and the abandoned laying-ground are consonant with her expression of melancholy. The girl's body language and clothing evoke tragedy and vulnerability: the dress drooping down from her shoulder, a hand laid weakly on her thigh, the shadows above the nape of her neck, the darkness at her left side, and the cold and pale coloring of her attire. 

For Delacroix, colors were the most important ingredients for his paintings. Because of this artistic taste and belief, he did not have the patience to create facsimiles of classical statues. He revered Peter Paul Rubens and the Venetians. More Jeune orpheline au cimetière

Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix (26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.

As a painter and muralist, Delacroix's use of expressive brushstrokes and his study of the optical effects of colour profoundly shaped the work of the Impressionists, while his passion for the exotic inspired the artists of the Symbolist movement. A fine lithographer, Delacroix illustrated various works of William Shakespeare, the Scottish author Walter Scott and the German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Delacroix took for his inspiration the art of Rubens and painters of the Venetian Renaissance, with an attendant emphasis on colour and movement rather than clarity of outline and carefully modelled form. Dramatic and romantic content characterized the central themes of his maturity, and led him not to the classical models of Greek and Roman art, but to travel in North Africa, in search of the exotic. Friend and spiritual heir to Théodore Géricault, Delacroix was also inspired by Lord Byron, with whom he shared a strong identification with the "forces of the sublime", of nature in often violent action.

However, Delacroix was given to neither sentimentality nor bombast, and his Romanticism was that of an individualist. In the words of Baudelaire, "Delacroix was passionately in love with passion, but coldly determined to express passion as clearly as possible." MoreFerdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix

Gustave Courbet, (French, Ornans 1819–1877 La Tour-de-Peilz)

Jo, La Belle Irlandaise, c.1865–66

Jo, the Beautiful Irish Girl

Oil on canvas

:22 x 26 in. (55.9 x 66 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The "beautiful Irishwoman" depicted in this painting is Joanna Hiffernan (born 1842/43), mistress and model of the artist James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), and perhaps subsequently Courbet’s lover. Although dated 1866, the picture was likely undertaken in 1865, when the two men painted together at the French seaside resort of Trouville; Courbet wrote of "the beauty of a superb redhead whose portrait I have begun." He would paint three repetitions with minor variations. More Joanna Hiffernan

Joe was romantically linked to the American painter and etcher James (Abbot) McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) (below) and French painter Gustave Courbet (1819-77) for whom she modelled and became mistress and muse. She is described as a fiery redhead, physically striking with an even more impressive personality. Whistler biographers and friends, the Pennels, wrote that ‘She was not only beautiful, she was intelligent, she was sympathetic, she gave Whistler the constant companionship he could not do without’. More Jo

Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet (10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and the Romanticism of the previous generation of visual artists. His independence set an example that was important to later artists, such as the Impressionists and the Cubists. Courbet occupies an important place in 19th-century French painting as an innovator and as an artist willing to make bold social statements through his work.

Courbet's paintings of the late 1840s and early 1850s brought him his first recognition. They challenged convention by depicting unidealized peasants and workers, often on a grand scale traditionally reserved for paintings of religious or historical subjects. Courbet's subsequent paintings were mostly of a less overtly political character: landscapes, seascapes, hunting scenes, nudes and still lifes. He was imprisoned for six months in 1871 for his involvement with the Paris Commune, and lived in exile in Switzerland from 1873 until his death. More Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, (1834–1903)

Symphony in White no 1: The White Girl

Portrait of Joanna Hiffernan, c. 1862

Oil on canvas

214.6 × 108 cm (84.5 × 42.5 in)

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Whistler first met Hiffernan in 1860 while she was at a studio in Rathbone Place, according to Ionides, and she went on to have a six year liaison with him. She modelled for some of Whistler's most famous paintings during this period. She was in France with Whistler during the summer of 1861, and in Paris during the winter of 1861-62 sitting for Symphony in White, No. I: The White Girl (YMSM 38) at a studio in Boulevard des Batignolles. It is possible that this is where she met Courbet for whom she later modelled. More Joanna Hiffernan and James Abbott McNeill Whistler

James Abbott McNeill Whistler (July 10, 1834 – July 17, 1903) was an American artist, active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He was averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, and was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". His famous signature for his paintings was in the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger for a tail. The symbol was apt, for it combined both aspects of his personality—his art was characterized by a subtle delicacy, while his public persona was combative. Finding a parallel between painting and music, Whistler entitled many of his paintings "arrangements", "harmonies", and "nocturnes", emphasizing the primacy of tonal harmony. His most famous painting is "Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1" (1871), commonly known as Whistler's Mother, the revered and oft-parodied portrait of motherhood. Whistler influenced the art world and the broader culture of his time with his artistic theories and his friendships with leading artists and writers. More James Abbott McNeill Whistler 

Jean-Marc Nattier (1685–1766)

Portrait of Éléonore Louise Le Gendre de Berville, (1740-1761) marquise du Hallay-Coëtquen, c. 1751

Oil on canvas

70,5 × 58 cm

Private collection

Eléonore Louise Le Gendre de Berville was the daughter of Pierre-Hyacinthe Le Gendre, chevalier, marquis de Berville and Marie-Adélaïde Le Gendre de Maigremont, her first cousin. She was born in Paris on 3 February 1740 and married in 1761 with Emmanuel Agathe, Marquis du Hallay, Earl of Montmoron. She died on 11 December 1761 in Paris at the birth of her son Emmanuel.

Jean-Marc Nattier (17 March 1685 – 7 November 1766), French painter, was born in Paris. He is noted for his portraits of the ladies of King Louis XV's court in classical mythological attire.

He enrolled in the Royal Academy in 1703 and made a series of drawing of the Marie de Médicis painting cycle by Peter Paul Rubens in the Luxembourg Palace; the publication of engravings based on these drawings made Nattier famous. He had applied himself to copying pictures at the Luxembourg Gallery, he refused to proceed to the French Academy in Rome, though he had taken the first prize at the Paris Academy at the age of fifteen. In 1715 he went to Amsterdam, where Peter the Great was then staying, and painted portraits of the tsar and the empress Catherine, but declined an offer to go to Russia.

Nattier aspired to be a history painter. Between 1715 and 1720 he devoted himself to compositions like the "Battle of Pultawa", which he painted for Peter the Great, and the "Petrification of Phineus and of his Companions", which led to his election to the Academy. More Jean-Marc Nattier 

Jean-Marc Nattier, (1685–1766)

Madame de Pompadour (1722–1764), c. 1746

mistress of Louis XV, represented as Diana the Huntress

Oil on canvas

102 × 82 cm (40.2 × 32.3 in)

Palace of Versailles

Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour, also known as Madame de Pompadour (French: [pɔ̃.pa.duːʁ]; 29 December 1721 – 15 April 1764), was a member of the French court and was the official chief mistress of Louis XV from 1745 to 1751, when she then became and remained a close friend and confidante to the king until her death. She took charge of the king’s schedule and was a valued aide and advisor, despite her frail health and many political enemies. She secured titles of nobility for herself and her relatives, and built a network of clients and supporters. She was particularly careful not to alienate the Queen, Marie Leszczyńska. On February 8, 1756, the Marquise de Pompadour was named as the thirteenth lady in waiting to the queen, a position considered the most prestigious at the court, which accorded her with honors. She was a major patron of architecture and decorative arts, such as porcelain. She was a patron of the philosophes of the Enlightenment, including Voltaire. Hostile critics at the time generally tarred her as a malevolent political influence, but historians are more favorable, emphasizing her successes as a patron of the arts and a champion of French pride. More Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour,

Jules Bastien-Lepage, (1848–1884)

Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923), c. 1879

Oil on canvas

 82.042 x 109.728 cm

Beaux-Arts museum, Nancy

Sarah Bernhardt (French: 22 October 1844 – 26 March 1923) was a French stage and early film actress. She was referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known", and is regarded as one of the finest actors of all time. Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, at the beginning of the Belle Epoque period, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas. She developed a reputation as a sublime dramatic actress and tragedienne, earning the nickname "The Divine Sarah". In her later career she starred in some of the earliest films ever produced. More Sarah Bernhardt 

Jules Bastien-Lepage (1 November 1848 – 10 December 1884) was a French painter closely associated with the beginning of naturalism, an artistic style that emerged from the later phase of the Realist movement. He was born in the village of Damvillers, Meuse, and spent his childhood there. Bastien took an early liking to drawing, and his parents fostered his creativity by buying prints of paintings for him to copy.

Jules's first formal training was at Verdun, and prompted by a love of art he went to Paris in 1867, where he was admitted to the École des Beaux-arts, working under Cabanel. He was awarded first place for drawing but spent most of his time working alone, only occasionally appearing in class. During the Franco-Prussian war in 1870, Bastien fought and was wounded. After the war, he returned home to paint the villagers and recover from his wound. In 1873 he painted his grandfather in the garden, a work that would bring the artist his first success at the Paris Salon.

His initial success was confirmed in 1875 by the First Communion, a picture of a little girl minutely worked up. The last picture, Haymaking (Les Foins), now in the Musée d'Orsay, was widely praised by critics and the public alike. It secured his status as one of the first painters in the Naturalist school.

Between 1880 and 1883 he traveled in Italy. The artist, long ailing, had tried in vain to re-establish his health in Algiers. He died in Paris in 1884, when planning a new series of rural subjects. More Jules Bastien-Lepage

Nicolas de Largillière

Émilie du Châtelet, 18th century

Oil on canvas

One of the rare paintings of Emilie where she is not looking directly out at the artist, she looks skyward with her familiar compass in one hand and the other on top of  the world; denoting her intellectual focus

Gabrielle-Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, marquise du Châtelet, (born Dec. 17, 1706, Paris, France—died Sept. 10, 1749, Lunéville), French mathematician and physicist who was the mistress of Voltaire.

She was married at 19 to the Marquis Florent du Châtelet, governor of Semur-en-Auxois, with whom she had three children. The marquis then took up a military career and thereafter saw his wife only infrequently. Mme du Châtelet returned to Paris and its dazzling social life in 1730 and had several lovers before entering into an affair and intellectual alliance with Voltaire in 1733. She was able to extricate the intemperate Voltaire from many personal and political difficulties. To avoid an arrest warrant, Voltaire left Paris in June of that year, taking refuge in Mme du Châtelet’s château at Cirey in Champagne. In this haven they pursued their writing and philosophical and scientific discussions. In 1738 Mme du Châtelet and Voltaire competed independently for a prize offered by the Academy of Sciences for an essay on the nature of fire. Although the prize was won by the German mathematician Leonhard Euler, Mme du Châtelet’s Dissertation sur la nature et la propagation du feu was published in 1744 at the Academy’s expense. She wrote several other scientific treatises and many posthumously published works on philosophy and religion.

Voltaire and Mme du Châtelet continued to live together even after she began an affair with the poet Jean-François de Saint-Lambert; and when she died in childbirth at the court of Stanislas Leszczyński, Duke of Lorraine, these men and her husband were with her. From 1745 until her death she had worked unceasingly on the translation of Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica. It was published in part, with a preface by Voltaire and under the direction of the French mathematician Alexis-Claude Clairaut, in 1756. The entire work appeared in 1759 and was for many years the only French translation of the Principia.

The many hundreds of letters that passed between Mme du Châtelet and Voltaire are assumed to have been destroyed, but some were included in Voltaire’s Correspondance, 24 vol. (1953–57). More Émilie du Châtelet

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10 Paintings, PORTRAIT OF A LADY, with Footnotes. # 18

John Singer Sargent, (1856–1925)

Portrait of Lady Agnew of Lochnaw (1865-1932), c. 1892

Oil on canvas

127 × 101 cm (50 × 39.8 in)

Scottish National Gallery

Lady Gertrude Agnew was born in 1865, the daughter of the Hon. Gowran Vernon and granddaughter of Robert Vernon, 1st Baron Lyveden. She married Sir Andrew Agnew, 9th Baronet of Lochnaw Castle in 1889. In 1892  he commissioned John Singer Sargent to paint her portrait. The success of the painting endowed Gertrude with additional notability and prestige. There is speculation that the family may have met with financial difficulties resulting in an attempt to sell the painting to the Trustees of the Frick Collection in 1922 but the offer was rejected. Gertrude died in London in April 1932 after suffering ill health for a long time. More Lady Gertrude Agnew

John Singer Sargent (January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings. His oeuvre documents worldwide travel, from Venice to the Tyrol, Corfu, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida.

His parents were American, but he was trained in Paris prior to moving to London. Sargent enjoyed international acclaim as a portrait painter, although not without controversy and some critical reservation; an early submission to the Paris Salon, his "Portrait of Madame X", was intended to consolidate his position as a society painter, but it resulted in scandal instead. From the beginning his work was characterized by remarkable technical facility, particularly in his ability to draw with a brush, which in later years inspired admiration as well as criticism for a supposed superficiality. His commissioned works were consistent with the grand manner of portraiture, while his informal studies and landscape paintings displayed a familiarity with Impressionism. In later life Sargent expressed ambivalence about the restrictions of formal portrait work, and devoted much of his energy to mural painting and working en plein air. He lived most of his life in Europe. More John Singer Sargent

Sir Francis Grant, PRA (1803 –1878

 Anne Emily Sophia Grant (known as 'Daisy' Grant), Mrs William Markham (1836 - 1880), c. 1857

 Oil on canvas

223.50 x 132.30 cm (framed: 260.20 x 169.20 x 13.00 cm)

National Galleries of Scotland

Sir Francis Grant’s affectionate depiction of his daughter ‘Daisy’ was painted in February 1857, and first shown in Scotland at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1859. This portrait shows the artist at the height of his powers. It was painted just before Daisy’s marriage to Colonel William Markham. In depicting his daughter, Grant was unconstrained by the demands of a commission. For a mid-century portrait by a painter at the heart of the artistic and social establishment, it is startlingly direct. More about this painting

Sir Francis Grant PRA (18 January 1803 – 5 October 1878). Scottish painter, active mainly in England. Grant was one of the most successful fashionable portraitists of his day and he also (particularly early in his career) produced sporting pictures (he came from an aristocratic family and was devoted to fox-hunting). He was perhaps at his best in portraits of young women, in which he continued the glamorous tradition of Lawrence but tempered the elegant dash with a touch of Victorian sobriety: an enchanting example is his portrait of his daughter ‘Daisy’ Grant (1857, NG, Edinburgh). More Sir Francis Grant

Sir Francis Grant, PRA (1803 –1878

HM Queen Victoria (1819–1901), c. 1845/46

 Oil on canvas

274.3 x 218.4 cm

Christ's Hospital, Horsham, West Sussex, England

The painting records a review which took place on the morning of 11 June 1845 when the Queen inspected the troops stationed at Windsor, the Regiment of Royal Horse Guards and the 2nd Battalion of Coldstream Guards. In the background we can see the Duke of Wellington on his horse. The Queen’s horse is Hammon, an Arab who had been bred in the King of Prussia’s stud at Trakehnen and was given to the Queen in 1844. The horse, according to the Queen, behaved extremely well. 

Sir Francis Grant, PRA (1803 –1878

Sketch for HM Queen Victoria (1819–1901), c. 1845/46

 Oil on canvas

33.6 x 30.7 cm

Royal Collection Trust

This is a sketch for an equestrian portrait of the Queen was painted for Christ’s Hospital in commemoration of her visit to the school. BIt was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1846. Grant had to change the position of the horse and rider during the course of the painting, apparently because the original composition was identical to Sir Edwin Landseer’s portrait of the Queen. This new design is reminiscent of Van Dyck’s portrait at Holkham Hall of the Duke of Arenberg. 

Son of a Perthshire laird, Sir Francis Grant was unusual in being largely self-taught. After spending a substantial inheritance on his great passions – hunting to hounds and collecting paintings, Grant decided to turn his considerable talents to professional use. Despite being one of the most sought after society portrait painters of his day and the only Scottish President of the Royal Academy in London, Queen Victoria observed ‘He has decidedly much talent but it is the talent of an amateur’. However, Grant did find favour at court and received commissions by the Queen on several occasions during the 1840’s. More Queen Victoria on Horseback

Sir Francis Grant PRA (18 January 1803 – 5 October 1878). Scottish painter, active mainly in England. Grant was one of the most successful fashionable portraitists of his day and he also (particularly early in his career) produced sporting pictures (he came from an aristocratic family and was devoted to fox-hunting). He was perhaps at his best in portraits of young women, in which he continued the glamorous tradition of Lawrence but tempered the elegant dash with a touch of Victorian sobriety: an enchanting example is his portrait of his daughter ‘Daisy’ Grant (1857, NG, Edinburgh). More Sir Francis Grant

Studio of Allan Ramsay, EDINBURGH 1713 - 1784 DOVER

PORTRAIT OF MARY STUART (D. 1739)

Oil on canvas, in a painted oval

76.5 x 63.5 cm.; 30 x 25 in.

Private Collection

Mary Stuart of Castlemilk married John Belsches of Invermay (1710-53), eldest son of Alexander Belsches who acquired the estate of Invermay in Perthshire. She was the daughter of Daniel Stuart (1670-1708), ancestor of the Stuarts of Fettercairn. Her daughter Emilia (1730-1807) married William Belsches of Tofts (1717-53).

Allan Ramsay (13 October 1713 – 10 August 1784) was a prominent Scottish portrait-painter. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. From the age of twenty he studied in London under the Swedish painter Hans Hysing, and at the St. Martin's Lane Academy; leaving in 1736 for Rome and Naples, where he worked for three years.

On his return in 1738, he first settled in Edinburgh, attracting attention by his head of Duncan Forbes of Culloden and his full-length portrait of the Duke of Argyll, later used on Royal Bank of Scotland banknotes. He later moved to London, where he was employed by the Duke of Bridgewater. In 1739 he married his first wife, Anne Bayne. Anne died on 4 February 1743, giving birth to their 3rd child; none of their children reached adulthood.

One of his drawing pupils was Margaret Lindsay. He later eloped with her and on 1 March 1752 they married in Edinburgh; her father never forgave her for marrying an artist. Ramsay and his new wife spent 1754 to 1757 together in Italy, researching, painting and drawing old masters, antiquities and archaeological sites. He earned income painting Grand Tourists' portraits. After their return, Ramsay was appointed to succeed John Shackelton as Principal Painter in Ordinary to George III. The king commissioned so many royal portraits to be given to ambassadors and colonial governors, that Ramsay used the services of numerous assistants.

He gave up painting in about 1770 to concentrate on literary pursuits. His health was shattered by an accidental dislocation of the right arm and his second wife's death in 1782. With unflinching pertinacity, he struggled until he had completed a likeness of the king upon which he was engaged at the time, and then started for his beloved Italy. He left a series of 50 royal portraits to be completed by his assistant Reinagle. For several years he lingered in the south, his constitution finally broken. He died at Dover on 10 August 1784. More Allan Ramsay

Allan Ramsay, EDINBURGH 1713 - 1784 DOVER

PORTRAIT OF CLEMENTINA MARIA SOPHIA WALKINSHAW (1726-1802)

Oil on canvas, in a painted oval

76.3 x 62.5 cm.; 30 x 24 5/8  in.

Private Collection

Clementina Walkinshaw, whose father, John Walkinshaw of Barrowfield, had fought in the 1715 Jacobite Rebellion for ‘the Old Pretender’, was the mistress of Bonnie Prince Charlie. Clementina first met Charles Edward Stuart when she nursed him back to health, apparently from a cold, at her uncle’s home at Bannockburn in January 1746, but it was not until November 1752 that she travelled to Belgium to live with the Prince. The attachment was not a happy one, with Charles disillusioned, alcoholic and possessive of Clementina, though neglectful of their only child, Charlotte. Reports told of unpleasant public arguments and violence towards Clementina who, in 1760, escaped with her daughter to Paris, and spent the next twelve years in French convents. Although Charlotte and her father were eventually reunited, she died just under two years after his death in 1788, aged only 36. Clementina, never reconciled with the Prince, outlived them both by over ten years, seeking refuge from the French Revolution in Switzerland. More Clementina Walkinshaw

Sir Anthony van Dyck,  (1599-1641)

Margaret Lemon (fl.1635-1640)  c.1638

Oil on canvas

93.3 x 77.8 cm

Cumberland Art Gallery, Presence Chamber, Hampton Court Palace

Margaret Lemon was Van Dyck’s mistress. A fellow artist of Van Dyck, Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-77), described her as violently jealous, even on one occasion attempting to bite Van Dyck’s thumb off. It is believed that this portrait was left unfinished because of the artist’s marriage in February 1640 to the more respectable court beauty Mary Ruthven (c.1622-44). 

The painting depend upon the same Titian model, his Woman in a Fur Wrap (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) (below), then in the collection of Charles I, which had been copied by Rubens during his 1629-30 stay in England and which Van Dyck could study daily. Van Dyck follows Titian more closely than Rubens (below) does, except in rejecting fur in favour of the equally sensuous and suggestive textures of silk. The poses of all three paintings (by Rubens, Titian and Van Dyck) derive from the antique statue called the Venus Pudica or Modest Venus, because she seeks to conceal her breasts with her arm. Margaret Lemon similarly presses a silk wrap against her body, while Titian’s figure appears to be donning or doffing a fur garment. 

Sir Anthony van Dyck, ( 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England, after enjoying great success in Italy and Flanders. He is most famous for his portraits of Charles I of England and his family and court, painted with a relaxed elegance that was to be the dominant influence on English portrait-painting for the next 150 years. He also painted biblical and mythological subjects, displayed outstanding facility as a draughtsman, and was an important innovator in watercolour and etching. The Van Dyke beard is named after him. More Sir Anthony van Dyck

Follower of Sir Anthony van Dyck

PORTRAIT OF MARGARET LEMON

Oil on canvas

108 x 86 cm.; 42 1/2  x 33 3/4  in.

Private Collection

A copy after the unfinished original portrait by Van Dyck, of circa 1638, in The Royal Collectio (above)

Titian, 1488 - 1576

Young Woman with a Fur Coat, c. 1535.

Oil on canvas

Height: 95 cm (37.4 in). Width: 63 cm (24.8 in).

Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna.

The figure stands angled towards the viewer’s left in a composed and demure stance while making eye contact.  She wears a rich, fur coat but appears to be in the process of removing the garment and thus revealing her right breast and arm.  The young woman is adorned with a jeweled headdress, ring and bracelet; and pearl earrings and necklace that were costly even for people of means during the Renaissance.

The woman’s sensual and soft hand on the fur wrap implies physical intimacy with a viewer, potentially making her a prostitute.  Furthermore, this amount of visible skin suggests eroticism, and thus the notion that prostitutes possibly wanting to emulate proper women, but without directly discussing with Titian himself one cannot be certain that this work of art is a portrait of a prostitute or a woman of status.

It is possible for the girl to be part of the high-ranking society.  If she were married, she would be celebrating the status of her husband by wearing such rich clothing.  At the same time she surrendered herself to him as his companion since her attire was dependent on him because of society’s gender roles. More Young Woman with a Fur Coat

Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio, or Titian (1488/1490 – 27 August 1576), was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. 

Recognized by his contemporaries as "The Sun Amidst Small Stars", Titian was one of the most versatile of Italian painters, equally adept with portraits, landscape backgrounds, and mythological and religious subjects. His painting methods, particularly in the application and use of color, would exercise a profound influence not only on painters of the Italian Renaissance, but on future generations of Western art.

During the course of his long life, Titian's artistic manner changed drastically but he retained a lifelong interest in color. Although his mature works may not contain the vivid, luminous tints of his early pieces, their loose brushwork and subtlety of tone are without precedent in the history of Western painting. More Titian

Sir Peter Paul Rubens, (b. 1577, Siegen, d. 1640, Antwerpen)

The Fur ("Het Pelsken"), c. 1630s

Oil on wood

176 x 83 cm

Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

In this painting the artist portrayed his second wife, Helene Fourment nude but for a fur. This was certainly his favourite among the many paintings exhibiting her undeniable charms. At all events, he refused to part with Het Pelsken. In tones worthy of Titian, he painted Helene with curly hair, her nipples erect, her nudity barely concealed by a fur wrap better suited to her husband's bulk than her own. Her expression is difficult to read: is her mutinous air intended as a provocation, or was she simply anxious to wrap herself up against the cold?

Nudity as an attribute of mythological beauty, which provided its "justification", was by no means new, but for Rubens the unusual picture of the naked Helene is exclusively private in character. Helene is standing on a red cloth and is wrapping herself, apparently spontaneously with a white cloth and a fur cloak. She is holding both in such a way that each arm crosses in front of her body covering the pelvic region, but pushing her breasts up in the crook of her right arm. Here, together with the face, the intimate gaze of the painter is betrayed. The title Het Pelsken ("The Little Fur") is due to Rubens himself, who described the painting thus in his will. He bequeathed it as a separate item to his wife and also stipulated expressly that it should not be offset against her official share of his estate. It was only after her death in 1658 that it passed into other hands. More Het Pelsken

Sir Peter Paul Rubens (28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640)was a Flemish Baroque painter. A proponent of an extravagant Baroque style that emphasized movement, colour, and sensuality, Rubens is well known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects.

In addition to running a large studio in Antwerp that produced paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, Rubens was a classically educated humanist scholar and diplomat who was knighted by both Philip IV of Spain and Charles I of England.  More Sir Peter Paul Rubens

Acknowledgement: Sotheby's, and others

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