01 Paintings, PORTRAIT OF A LADY., with Footnotes. #46

Richard Rothwell (1800–1868)

Portrait of Mary Shelley, c. 1840

National Portrait Gallery

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (née Godwin; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin, and her mother was the philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. More on Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Richard Rothwell (20 November 1800 – 13 September 1868) was a nineteenth-century Irish portrait and genre painter. Rothwell was born in Athlone, Ireland to James and Elizabeth and was the oldest of their seven children. He trained to become a painter at the Dublin Society's school from 1814 until 1820 and won a silver medal for his work. At the age of 24, he was made a member of the newly established Royal Hibernian Academy and exhibited portraits there from 1826 to 1829. He subsequently moved to London and worked as a studio assistant to Thomas Lawrence. When Lawrence died in 1830, Rothwell completed many of his unfinished works and was poised to become the next foremost portrait painter in Britain and Ireland. From 1831 to 1834, Rothwell toured Italy to study Italian art so that he could paint history paintings. When he returned to London, his popularity had evaporated. Rothwell lived and exhibited works in Ireland, the United States, London, and Italy, but he never again achieved the same level of popularity he had reached in the late 1820s. More on Richard Rothwell

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01 Paintings, PORTRAIT OF A LADY., with Footnotes. #45

John Opie, (1761–1807) 

Mary Wollstonecraft, circa 1797

Oil on canvas

30 1/4 in. x 25 1/4 in. (768 mm x 641 mm)

National Portrait Gallery, London

Mary Wollstonecraft (27 April 1759 – 10 September 1797) was an English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book. Wollstonecraft is best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack education. She suggests that both men and women should be treated as rational beings and imagines a social order founded on reason.

Wollstonecraft married the philosopher William Godwin, one of the forefathers of the anarchist movement. Wollstonecraft died at the age of 38, eleven days after giving birth to her second daughter, leaving behind several unfinished manuscripts. This daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, became an accomplished writer herself, as Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. More on Mary Wollstonecraft

John Opie RA (16 May 1761 – 9 April 1807) was a Cornish historical and portrait painter. He painted many great men and women of his day, including members of the British Royal Family, and others who were most notable in the artistic and literary professions.

Born in Trevellas, England, he showed a precocious talent for drawing and mathematics. His father, however, did not encourage his abilities, and apprenticed him to his own trade of carpentry. Opie's artistic abilities eventually came to the attention of Dr John Wolcot, who recognising his great talent. Wolcot became Opie's mentor, buying him out of his apprenticeship and insisting that he come to live at his home in Truro. Wolcot provided invaluable encouragement, advice, tuition and practical help in the advancement of his early career, including obtaining many commissions for work.

Opie's work, after an initial burst of popularity, rapidly fell out of fashion. In response to this he began to work on improving his technique, while at the same time seeking to supplement his early education, and to polish his provincial manners by mixing in cultivated and learned circles. In 1786 he exhibited his first important historical subject, the Assassination of James I, and in the following year the Murder of Rizzio, a work whose merit was recognized by his immediate election as associate of the Royal Academy. More on John Opie

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01 Painting, PORTRAIT OF A LADY., with Footnotes. #42

Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, (1755–1842) 

Self-portrait, c. 1781-1782

Oil on canvas

64.8 × 54 cm (25.5 × 21.3 in)

Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, United States

Stylistically, Vigée Le Brun avoided both the lightness of Late Rococo and the artifice of Neo-Classicism, countering both with a modulated naturalism. She became an artist against great odds, as did any woman in late-18th-century Paris, and aided by the patronage of Marie Antoinette, went on to thrive in a nine-lives, astutely managed sort of way. But her royal ties made her a target of the press, as did her high prices and her gender. She wisely fled France at the start of the revolution. More on this painting

Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (Marie Élisabeth Louise; 16 April 1755 – 30 March 1842), also known as Madame Lebrun, was a prominent French painter.

Her artistic style is generally considered part of the aftermath of Rococo, while she often adopts a neoclassical style. Vigée Le Brun cannot be considered a pure Neoclassicist, however, in that she creates mostly portraits in Neoclassical dress rather than the History painting. While serving as the portrait painter to Marie Antoinette, Vigée Le Brun works purely in Rococo in both her color and style choices.

Vigée Le Brun left a legacy of 660 portraits and 200 landscapes. In addition to private collections, her works may be found at major museums, such as the Hermitage Museum, London's National Gallery, and museums in continental Europe and the United States. More on Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun

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01 Painting, PORTRAIT OF A LADY., with Footnotes. #44

Sir James Jebusa Shannon, RA, RBA, RHA (British, 1862-1923)

The Flower Girl, c. 1900

Oil paint on canvas

838 x 660 mm

Tate

The Flower Girl; painted while the artist and his family were on holiday at Eastbourne in 1900. The woman was a flower girl whom they met regularly every morning on their way down to the beach; she consented to sit to Shannon in her ordinary working clothes and is shown nursing her baby. The artist's daughter Kitty recalls that her father told the flower girl to come ‘exactly as you are, baby, basket of flowers, the white blouse with the big black spots and old battered straw hat’. More on this painting

Sir James Jebusa Shannon RA (1862–1923), Anglo-American artist, was born in Auburn, New York, and at the age of eight was taken by his parents to Canada.

When he was sixteen, he went to England, where he studied at South Kensington, and after three years won the gold medal for figure painting. His portrait of the Hon. Horatia Stopford, one of the queen's maids of honour, attracted attention at the Royal Academy in 1881, and in 1887 his portrait of Henry Vigne in hunting costume was one of the successes of the exhibition, subsequently securing medals for the artist at Paris, Berlin, and Vienna.

He soon became one of the leading portrait painters in London. He was one of the first members of the New English Art Club, a founder member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and in 1897 was elected an associate of the Royal Academy, and RA in 1909. His picture, "The Flower Girl", was bought in 1901 for the National Gallery of British Art. Shannon has paintings in the collection of a several British institutions including Sheffield, Derby Art Gallery, Glasgow Museum and Bradford Museum. More James Jebusa Shannon

Please visit my other blogs: Art Collector, Mythology, Marine Art, Portrait of a Lady, The Orientalist, Art of the Nude and The Canals of Venice, And visit my Boards on Pinterest

Images are copyright of their respective owners, assignees or others. Some Images may be subject to copyright

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