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#PortraitMonday

"Martin, a Terrier," Rosa Bonheur, 1879.

French painter Bonheur (1822-99) was a daring woman in many ways. Her personal life courted controversy; she dressed in men's clothing and openly had love affairs with other women, at a time when such things could get one arrested. She insisted on being educated and trained as an artist at a time when that route was not open to women. And she insisted on painting animals when everyone else was doing classical human figures.

It was her devotion to her animal art that really paved the way for her in a society that might not otherwise approve. When other artists would use animals in a symbolic or satirical sense, or be overly melodramatic or sentimental, Bonheur depicted animals the way other portraitists depicted people; she strove to communicate their soul to the viewer.

It's unknown who commissioned this painting, but evidently it was a fairly wealthy person who wanted a depiction of a faithful hunting dog. Martin is realistically and meticulously rendered, and she shows his intent, yet soulful expression without resorting to mush.

Happy Portrait Monday!

From a private collection.

#Art #RosaBonheur #WomenArtists #QueerHistory #LGBTQArtists #PortraitMonday #Terrier #DogsOfMastodon

A Realist portrait of a dog, a terrier, against a gold background. The dog is mostly black and auburn but has a streak of white between his eyes and around his muzzle, and a patch of white on his chest. His gaze is both intent and soulful.

"Girl in a Pink Dress," Laura Wheeler Waring, 1927.

Waring (1887-1948) was THE great portrait artist of the Harlem Renaissance. Her depictions of major figures in Black history make her worthy of study.

Here we have a portrait of an unidentified young Black woman in a stylist 20s dress, with a stylish 20s hairdo. This is a young lady of fashion, very up-to-the-minute.

But also, her youth, the choice of pink for her dress, and the corsage at her shoulder...this hints at blossoming and young vitality. "Here," Wheeler may be saying, "is the future of Black America, just coming into blossom!"

I've talked about Waring before, including her many portraits and her years teaching, so I won't go into her life story. But I just love this portrait of a young, vital, serene woman, waiting to take on the world.

Happy Portrait Monday!

From a private collection.

#Art #LauraWheelerWaring #WomenArtists #WomenInArt #BlackHistoryMonth #PortraitMonday #HarlemRenaissance #YouthInBlossom #FutureOfAmerica

A Realist portrait, from the Harlem Renaissance. A young Black woman, with a 20s bob haircut, sits facing left, her head turned a quarter toward us. She wears a pink dress, in 20s style, with a corsage of pink flowers at the shoulder facing us. Her expression is serene and abstracted.

"Portrait of a Young Woman," Antonio or Piero del Pollaiolo, c. 1470.

One could say "Antonio and/or Piero" as it's unknown which of them painted this, or if the two worked together.

Antonio (C. 1429 or 33 - 1498) and Piero (C. 1443 - C. 1496) were brothers who worked together and shared a studio in Florence, and frequently collaborated on works. In fact, it's become so difficult to tell which did what, or if they worked together, that many works are just attributed to "the Pollaiolo Brothers." Neither was known to sign their works very often.

Antonio, the older by a decade, was also a sculptor and goldsmith; Piero was known only for his painting. Their father was a wealthy poultry merchant, hence their adopted name, a sort of joke as "pollaiolo" means "chicken coop" in Italian.

The identity of the sitter is unknown, although she's obviously from a wealthy family, what with the fancy hairdo and the jewelry. It's thought that this was an engagement portrait, as pearls often symbolize purity and rubies love, and the sitter's obvious youth makes the concept seem likely.

Happy Portrait Monday!

From the Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan.

#Art #PollaioloBrothers #Renaissance #WomenInArt #PortraitMonday

"Portrait of the Artist's Mother," Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1897.

Tanner (1859-1937) was the first Black American artist to win international fame and acclaim, & they were well-deserved.

The son of an AME bishop, Tanner was born & raised in Pittsburgh. He received artistic education at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where he was trained by Thomas Eakins, & worked with Robert Henri, a founder of the Ashcan School of painting, as well as others, who all remained his lifelong friends.

Finding racism and prejudice at home in the US, Tanner moved to Europe where he found acceptance, & where he lived the rest of his life, except for a few visits home.

Sarah Elizabeth Tanner (1840-1914) was born in Winchester, VA, but details of her early life are unclear; she may have been born to free people, or born into slavery and escaped via the Underground Railroad. She did become a respected missionary and religious worker, and raised seven children who all became successes in one way or another.

The portrait seems a riff on Whistler's famous painting of his mother, but here Tanner presents a warmer tone, although to me she looks sad.

Happy Portrait Monday, and Happy Black History Month!

#Art #HenryOssawaTanner #PortraitMonday #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackArtists #WomenInArt #AmericanRealism

An American Realist painting. Just to the right of center, a Black woman sits in a rocking chair. She wears a black dress, with a fan in her right hand and rests her head in the left. A long cloth trails on the floor behind her. The rest of the canvas is shadowy, hinting of a darkened room backed by red curtains. The woman's posture and expression are sad, and the empty space in front of her hints that she's missing someone absent.

"Luis E. Pombo," Guillermo Laborde, c. 1928.

Laborde (1886-1940) was an Uruguayan Modernist painter who was a founder of Planismo, a style of painting popular in Uruguay and other parts of Latin America in the 20s and 30s.

Planismo is a style that emphasizes sharp angular lines, little shading, brilliant colors, and a focus on everyday life and the Uruguayan landscape. Here, in what is regarded as one of the best-ever examples of planismo, he paints a portrait of his friend, the art critic and author Luis Eduardo Pombo (1900-1976).

Planismo wasn't widely accepted at first, but became eagerly accepted as a uniquely Uruguayan style and a source of national identity. I've seen a lot of this in my travels through the art world. Many times artists have developed a style, or subject matter, that they want to make a point of national pride, to make something not only that they can take pride in, but also something uniquely of their country. I sometimes think of this as ripples of the Romantic movement, which could be very nationalistic.

Happy Portrait Monday!

From the Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales, Montevideo.

#Art #GuillermoLaborde #Modernism #Planismo #LuisEduardoPombo #PortraitMonday #Uruguay #LatinAmericanArt

A Modernist portrait of the Planismo school. A man sits atop a cabinet, holding a book. The cabinet has four red panels and a white (marble?) top. The man sits in an uncomfortable, angular fashion; in his right hand he holds a book, and his left is held up in what may be a gesture of denial or defiance. He has short dark hair and a thin face, and wears tan trousers and a green sweater, and no shoes. The wall behind him is teal, and the floor orange. While his shadow is sharply defined, there is otherwise little shading.

"Girl in a Green Cap," Laura Wheeler Waring, 1930.

Waring (1887-1948) was THE great portraitist of the Harlem Renaissance, painting many of the notable Black people of the era.

Born in Hartford, CT, the daughter of a minister, her family was educated and cultured, and her ancestors had been part of the Underground Railroad. She attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, graduating in 1914. She traveled briefly in Europe, returning home when WWI started, but returned in the 20s, where she honed her style and exhibited in Paris galleries.

Returning to the US in 1927, she was commissioned to do portraits of figures of the Harlem Renaissance; this project, along with her work teaching at Cheyney University, an HBCU outside Philadelphia, was to consume the rest of her life. Her work is now featured in some of the country's top museums and galleries.

The subject of this portrait is unknown, but her calm confidence and self-assurance, and that knockout outfit, are beyond question.

Happy Portrait Monday!

From the Howard University Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

#Art #LauraWheelerWaring #Portrait #PortraitMonday #HarlemRenaissance #BlackHistory #MLKDay #BelieveInYourself

A Harlem Renaissance portrait of an unknown young Black woman. Against a mottled off-white background, her body faces the viewer's right while she turns to look at us. She wears a black dress with a sort of white ruffle, or perhaps a blouse, that leaves her arms bare. She wears a barely-visible green cap, along with green earrings and a necklace of green beads. Her expression is one of quiet self-assurance.

"Self-Portrait at the Easel," Catherina van Hemessen, 1548.

The career of van Hemessen (1528-1565 or later) has a number of unanswered questions; we don't know who taught her (probably her father, himself a painter), where she was born, exactly when she died, or really much about her personal life in general.

Her career, however, was a success, in part because she attracted the patronage of Maria of Austria, the Spanish-born former queen of Hungary who was then serving as the governor of the Netherlands, at the behest of her brother, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. (Complicated!) She painted mostly portraits, with a handful of religious works, and this is the first known portrait of an artist at work, so it has some significance.

She married a church organist in 1554, and seems to have given up painting after that. She and her husband moved to Spain with Maria when she retired from governorship, Catherina received a generous pension when Maria passed away, and they moved to Antwerp in 1561. The last mention of her in records is in 1565, and one source says she died in childbirth in '65 or '68.

Happy Portrait Monday!

From the Kunstmuseum Basel.

#Art #FlemishRenaissance #CatherinaVanHemessen #WomenArtists #WomenInArt #SelfPortrait #PortraitMonday

A Dutch Renaissance painting. The artist is shown in 3/4 view, wearing a black brocade dress with red sleeves, and a white lace cap, unsuitable for painting but showing off her social position. She looks out, not exactly meeting the viewer's gaze, and holds a brush in her right up to the canvas on the easel, while her left holds a palette and other brushes. Her head and arms are not in proportion.

"Winter," Giuseppe Arcimboldo, 1563.

Arcimboldo (1527-93) was a visionary who foretold the rise of Surrealism centuries later. His portrait still lifes are popular and admired today.

As far as can be known from records, he regarded these paintings only as novelties and entertainments, but they're also the only work of his that has had any impact. What is known of his conventional work is bland and dull compared to these, and much has been lost or forgotten.

Here we have Winter as a gnarled tree trunk, with a beard made up of roots, hair of ivy, wrapped in a plain straw mat, with citrus fruits (the only winter fruit in Italy) sprouting from his chest. A good representation of winter.

Happy Portrait Monday!

From the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

#Art #Surrealism #GiuseppeArcimboldo #Winter #PortraitMonday

Winter is represented as an old man, whose skin is a gnarled trunk, with the abrasions and swellings of the wood representing the skin wrinkles of old age. The beard, thin and poorly groomed, is composed of small branches and roots; the mouth of two mushrooms. The eye is a black cleft in the log and the ear what remains of a broken branch; his hair is a tangle of branches, accompanied on the back by a series of small leaves. His bare figure is animated only by the colors of lemon and orange, hanging on a branch from the man's chest, citrus being the only winter fruit in Italy. The man's dress is a simple straw mat.

"Titus at His Desk," Rembrandt van Rijn, 1655.

Who doesn't know Rembrandt?

This is a portrait of his one surviving son by his first wife, Saskia van Uylenburgh. (Three other children died within weeks of their birth.) Saskia herself died of tuberculosis a year after Titus' birth, and her illness and death affected him greatly, as we can see from his paintings of her on her deathbed. There is a tender sort of anxiety in his depictions of Titus, who he painted frequently, as if fearful that he could leave any day.

Titus van Rijn (1641-1668) was by all accounts an intelligent and willful child who adored his father and did everything he could to help him, especially when Rembrandt's financial problems led to a bankruptcy. When Titus got older, he and Rembrandt's mistress Hendrickje set up a corporation as art dealers to generate work and support for his father.

Titus married in 1668 to Magdalena van Loo, but died a few months later of unstated causes. His daughter Titia was born six months after his passing. Rembrandt himself passed on the following year.

Happy Portrait Monday!

From the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.

#Art #DutchGoldenAge #RembrandtVanRijn #PortraitMonday #Portraits

A Dutch Golden Age portrait, of a teenage boy with long blond hair and a red cap, sitting behind a desk or lectern. In his left hand he holds a sheaf of papers, and his right holds a pen but also supports his chin. He looks out to our left, in a distracted, thoughtful manner.

"Woman Before the Mirror," Ellen Emmet Rand, 1925.

Rand (1875-1941) was an American illustrator and portraitist. Born in San Francisco, educated in Boston and New York, she started off as an illustrator for magazines like Harper's Bazaar, Harper's Weekly, and Vogue. She then traveled to London and Paris, and returned to New York in 1900 to paint full time.

A cousin to Henry and William James, as well as several other artists, she had connections to exploit, and she did a number of portraits of society figures, artists, and writers. Reportedly she started a portrait of Theodore Roosevelt but found it too difficult (constant interruptions) to complete. She did paint Franklin Roosevelt's official portrait, which is now missing from the National Archives. (Has anyone checked Mar-a-Lago?)

The textured work here is lovely, and instead of checking herself out, the lady is looking out at us, confronting the viewer with a certain self-assertion. She mixes new with old; the clothes and furniture are clearly 19th century, but the assertiveness of her gaze is modern.

Happy Portrait Monday!

From the Art Institute of Chicago.

#Art #EllenEmmetRand #PortraitMonday #Realism #WomenArtists #WomenInArt

A Realist portrait of a woman in Victorian dress, sitting in a chair and looking into a mirror located behind the chair. Her back is turned to us but we can see her face in the reflection. Her dress is a dark slate blue, and her hat is black with black-and-teal feathers. She has brown hair done up on the back of her head, and she looks not at herself, but at us. The chair has a round back, typical of Victorian styling, and the mirror is of the era's style as well.

"Girl in a Red Ruff," Pierre-Auguste Renoir, c. 1896.

One of the all-time great Impressionists, Renoir (1841-1919) was becoming disillusioned with Impressionism in the 1880s. He traveled in Italy, partly to visit museums and partly seeking relief from the rheumatoid arthritis that was hindering his life at the time. (He ended up moving to the Mediterranean coast of France, hoping the warm weather would help.)

He was profoundly influenced by Renaissance art, the Neoclassicists (especially Ingres), and the Rococo school, and sought to incorporate more of their style, rather than his usual thing. It didn't entirely last; he ended up re-incorporating some of his Impressionist stylings, but the influence remained. At this point in his life, most of his work involved women in various settings and costumes.

The unidentified woman here is all fresh rosy cheeks and dewy lips, with her hair demurely up in a bun. The white outfit and red ruff makes me wonder if she's meant to be a clown or commedia dell'arte character. She's got the formal posing of a Neoclassical painting, but the colors and warm lighting, and some of the blurred lines, of Renoir's best Impressionist work.

Happy Portrait Monday!

From the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

#Art #PierreAugusteRenoir #Impressionism #Neoclassicism #WomenInArt #PortraitMonday

An Impressionist portrait (with some Classical influences) showing a young woman, facing left. She has dark hair gathered in a bun, and is wearing a white costume with a flamboyant red ruff, as if she is a clown or some other theatrical character. She stands against a green background.

"William Butler Yeats," John Singer Sargent, 1907.

Y'all know Sargent, the great society portraitist, by now.

In the early 1900s, Sargent was at the height of his fame, but also starting to slow down a bit. He'd gone hither and yon doing portraits of anybody who was anybody, and had weathered the "Madame X" scandal, and had continued to work at a prolific pace. But soon after this portrait (a commission, to be the frontispiece to a collection of Yeats' poetry), he officially closed his London studio and slowed down significantly....but still painted, almost up until his passing in 1925.

Yeats (1865-1913) was an Irish poet, playwright, and critic who was one of the great figures of 20th century literature. He co-founded Dublin's Abbey Theatre, was the driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, was an Irish Nationalist, and received the 1923 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Although he was in his 40s when this was drawn, he looks quite young. Yeats was known to be fussy about his appearance, and to cultivate a Boho image; perhaps Sargent was being flattering. But spare charcoal-on-paper style works wonderfully.

Happy Portrait Monday!

From a private collection.

#Art #JohnSingerSargent #WilliamButlerYeats #PortraitMonday

A charcoal portrait of Irish poet William Butler Yeats.

"Madame X," John Singer Sargent, 1884.

Y'all know Sargent by now.

It's funny that this picture, now sometimes called "the American Mona Lisa," almost ended Sargent's career. He pursued Paris socialite Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, wanting to paint her, and it took almost a year to complete. Originally it featured a shoulder strap sliding off her shoulder, which, when combined with the lack of jewelry and gloves, and the gown's plunging neckline, was seen as too sexual and salacious; some thought it hinted at an affair between artist and subject. Not likely, Sargent was a very active gay man.

The New Orleans-born Gautreau was one of the great beauties of Parisian society, and was pursued by several portraitists. Although it's often said her reputation was ruined by this painting; it really wasn't as most of the backlash was directed at Sargent. She did become more choosy about which functions she would attend, and she had several more portraits done, one almost identical to this but was greeted only with praise.

Now it's regarded as one of the great classic works of American art!

Happy Portrait Monday!

From the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

#Art #JohnSingerSargent #AmericanArt #MadameX #PortraitMonday #Scandalous #WomenInArt

"Autumn," Giuseppe Arcimboldo, 1573.

Arcimboldo (1527-93) was technically a Mannerist painter, but heck, I'd call him a Proto-Surrealist.

Born into an artistic family, he was designing stained glass and murals when he was 21. (I can kind of see the connections between works like this and stained glass...both assembling parts to make a greater whole...) He did a lot of conventional portraits and other works that have fallen into obscurity; some folks may have an Arcimboldo in their collections and not know it, because it's too...well....normal.

These composite, still-life portraits were celebrated in their day for their inventiveness. Some wonder if he was mentally, or just whimsical, but many feel he was making social commentaries with some of these works.

After his death, he was largely forgotten until the 19th century, and in the 20th the Surrealists idolized him. Now he's celebrated for his imagination and inventiveness. Only about 20 of his works are known to survive, but there may be more out there waiting to be discovered.

Mondays are usually when I feature portraits....I've done portraits of animals, why not a portrait of a season?

Happy Portrait Monday!

From the Louvre, Paris.

#Art #Surrealism #GiuseppeArcimboldo #Autumn #PortraitMonday

An Italian Mannerist painting, showing a surly man with rough features looking to the left. The neck, made up of two pears and some vegetables, emerges from a partially destroyed vat, whose wooden slats are bound together with willow branches. His face is made of apples and pears, especially the cheek and nose, his chin is a pomegranate, while the ear is a mushroom, with a fig-shaped earring. The lips and mouth are made of chestnuts. His hair is made up of bunches of grapes and his bonnet of a pumpkin.

"Madame Desbassayns de Richemont and Her Son," Marie Benoist, 1802.

Benoist (1768-1826) was a French Neoclassical painter and portraitist, a student of the great portraitist Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun, and also a protegee of Jacques-Louis David....to whom this portrait was mistakenly attributed for years.

She was one of a number of women artists in France just after the Revolution who exhibited to the public for the first time; before then exhibitions by women artists were rare. Benoist thrived in that environment, and one fame for her "Portrait of Madeleine," of a Black woman, the first time a Black woman had been portrayed as the aesthetic center of a Western work of art.

Jeanne Egle Fulcrand Catherine Mourgue married into the wealthy Desbassayns family, whose immense fortune came from sugar and coffee plantations on Reunion, in the Indian Ocean. There's a certain charm in her simple Empire dress and the curious toddler climbing into her lap.

Benoist sadly withdrew from the art world in 1814, at the height of her popularity, due to her husband's involvement in Royalist causes and the growing wave of conservatism in Europe of the time.

Happy Portrait Monday!

From the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

#Art #PortraitMonday #MarieBenoist #Neoclassicism

A Neoclassical portrait. A woman in a white Empire dress sits on a chair with a red cloth over the back, against a brown backdrop. She is seated sideways but looks directly at us. Half in her lap is a young blond boy, as if in the act of climbing up to her lap but also looking at us curiously.

"Rollande," Prudence Heward, 1929.

Montreal-born Heward (1896-1947) was known for her paintings of female subjects in rural settings, mostly around Fernbank, Ontario, or in rural Quebec.

She began art lessons early, with interruptions by WWI (when she lived in England) and four years in Paris in the 1920s. It was there she became influenced by modernism and Expressionism, which left a strong impact on her work. She was taken more seriously in the art world, had independent exhibitions in the 30s, and exhibited with Canada's famous Group of Seven, and was strongly allied with Montreal's Beaver Hall Group artistic movement, although she was never an official member and never exhibited with them.

Asthma and other health problems cut her life short at 50, but she remains a significant figure in Canadian art history. In 2010 this very painting was featured on a stamp by Canada Post.

Happy Portrait Monday!

From the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.

#Art #Expressionism #PrudenceHeward #PortraitMonday #CanadianArt #GroupOfSeven #BeaverHallGroup #WomenArtists #WomenInArt

An Expressionist portrait. A young woman leans against a fence, her hands on her hips. She wears a black dress with white collar, and over it an acidic pink apron. She has short dark hair and a dour expression, and looks downward and to our left. In the background, on a green field, sits a white farmhouse, and above it a cloudy sky.

"Portrait of a Rabbit," Yabu Chosui, 1867.

I am unable to find any information about Yabu Chosui other than their dates (1814 to c.1870) and several other works, which annoys me.

This is a surimono print, a genre of Japanese printmaking that was generally in small runs and commissioned for a special occasion, like the New Year, which is believed to be the inspiration for this print, assumed to have been made in honor of the Year of the Rabbit.

Surimono prints were commissioned and collected by the educated literati, and as such could be more experimental and extravagant than the usual commercial prints. This is a bit surreal, in giving us a huge rabbit...but the body resembles the bag of Hotei, the god of prosperity, which often figured in New Year's art, and also possibly is meant to resemble the moon, where an immortal rabbit lives, according to Japanese mythology. It's also possibly meant to reflect a common New Year's symbol, the rising sun, as we have the rabbit against a pink field like a morning sky.

Surimono prints were also commissioned by poetry societies to honor a prizewinning poem, and by kabuki actors, to commemorate significant moments in their careers.

Happy Portrait Monday!

From the Art Institute of Chicago.

#Art #YabuChosui #Surimono #JapaneseArt #AsianArt #PortraitMonday

A large rabbit fills the entire surface of this print, indicating that it was created in the year of the rabbit. The curious, sacklike quality of the rabbit’s body is also a reference to the large white bag of Hotei, one of the gods of good fortune, who often appears on New Year visual art. The rabbit’s body is also rounded out to suggest a lopsided moon (the home of the rice-pounding rabbit), which is emphasized by its silvery outline. Finally, there is an allusion to the most common New Year symbol, the rising sun. Although the rising sun is usually represented as a luminous, round body against an orange sky, Yabu Chosui showed it as a rising lopsided rabbit against a flaming pink background.

"Self-Portrait with a Turban," Wallerant Vaillant, c.1650-60.

Vaillant (1623-77) was born in France, to a family of artists; he had four brothers who also all became painters. Wallerant is said to have taught all of his brothers to draw and paint, and they all settled in Amsterdam.

Vaillant was primarily a printmaker and engraver, and is thought to have developed the mezzotint style of printing, along with Prince Rupert of the Rhine, who he was tutoring. But he did turn out a small number of paintings, mostly portraits, including a series of self-portraits in various modes of dress.

Here we have him in a flamboyant red turban, echoing a similar self-portrait of Rembrandt. The fabric is richly printed and well-depicted; it's a very well-done portrait. I wonder about his expression, though....it seems a mixture of wariness and defiance, as if daring us to say something about the turban!

Happy Portrait Monday!

From a private collection.

#Art #DutchGoldenAge #WallerantVaillant #Selfie #PortraitMonday #Turban

A Dutch Golden Age painting, of a young man in a plain brown robe against a black background, with a flamboyant red brocade turban around his head. He looks out at us, almost warily or defiantly, as if daring us to say something about his headgear.

"Portrait of a Young Girl ('Greta')," Suze Robertson, 1922.

Dutch painter Robertson (1855-1922) courted scandal; when teaching a women's art class, she insisted on having them draw nude model, which horrified the establishment of Rotterdam, where she was teaching.

She was also a member of the Amsterdamse Joffers, a circle of women painters who met weekly to support each other and critique each other's work. The Joffers (Dutch for "young ladies") helped promote the idea that women could be professional artists and were not to be excluded. While some were very much Impressionists, Robertson and others blazed a trail for modern art in the Netherlands.

The identity of the sitter here is unknown, other than the name "Greta." She looks sad yet determined. Done in a fairy Expressionist style, with bold brushstrokes, heavy contouring, and dark colors. Greta was a frequent model for Robertson, who did this painting shortly before her death. The lack of any context to the image, featuring just her face, make it enigmatic and compelling.

From the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

#Art #Modernism #Expressionism #SuzeRobertson #PortraitMonday

An Expressionist portrait of a young woman. Her had fills the canvas; on her her upper chest and some of her shoulders are visible. She wears a dark brown garment with some white around the collar. Her hair is long and straight. She is presented in three-quarter view, with her head tilted and a somewhat sad expression.

"Portrait of a Noblewoman," Lavinia Fontana, 1580.

Fontana (1552-1614) is regarded as the first female career artist in Western Europe, as she relied solely on commissions to support herself and her family. Her husband acted as her agent, and raised their 11 children (!).

At the time this was painted, she was a popular portraitist in her native Bologna, very sought after by noblewomen. Apparently she was beloved by her clients; previous clients would sit and chat while she painted someone else's portrait. Fontana later moved to Rome, upon being patronized by Pope Clement VIII, where she painted more portraits and a series of altarpieces and religious paintings.

It's generally agreed that this particular painting was of a young woman about to be married. She's obviously a product of wealth. Those clothes! Those jewels! She has the pelt of a marten hanging from her belt, itself set with jewels. She looks distracted, and a bit unhappy, but at the time, even wealthy women had few choices in life. Even the small dog begging for attention isn't enough to bring a smile to her face.

Happy Portrait Monday!

From the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC.

#Art #LaviniaFontana #Mannerism #Renaissance #WomenArtists #WomenInArt #PortraitMonday

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