Monday, January 13, 2020

Portraits of Known Sitters by Unknown Artists

Anonymous Flemish Artist
Emperor Charles V
ca. 1515
oil on panel
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Anonymous Flemish Artist
Nicholas Gaze and his Son (as  donors, kneeling)
accompanied by St Nicholas

ca. 1520
oil on panel
(altarpiece fragment)
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, West Midlands

Anonymous Flemish Artist
William Paget, 1st Baron Paget de Beaudesert
1549
oil on panel
National Trust, Plas Newydd, Wales

Anonymous Italian Artist
Orazio Farnese, Duke of Castro
ca. 1550
oil on slate
National Trust, Upton House, Oxfordshire

Anonymous Flemish Artist
Lady Elizabeth Walshe
1589
oil on panel
York Art Gallery (Yorkshire)

That Women Ought To Paint (excerpt)

Foulenesse is Lothsome: can that be so which helpes it? who forbids his Beloved to gird in her waste? to mend by shooing her uneven lamenesse? to burnish her teeth? or to perfume her breath? yet that the Face bee more precisely regarded, it concerns more: For as open confessing sinners are alwaies punished, but the wary and concealing offenders without witnesse doe it also without punishment; so the secret parts needs the lesse respect; but of the Face, discovered to all Examinations and survayes, there is not too nice a Jealousie. Nor doth it onely draw the busie eyes, but it is subject to the divinest touch of all, to kissing, the strange and mysitcall union of soules. If she should prostitute her selfe to a more unworthy Man than thy selfe, how earnestly and justly wouldst thou exclaim? Then for want of this easier and ready way of repairing, to betray her body to ruine and deformity (the tyrannous Ravishers, and sodaine Deflourers of all  Women) what a heynous Adultery is it?  What thou lovest in her face is colour, and painting gives that, but thou hatest it, not because it is, but because thou knowest it. Foole, whom ignorance makes happy; the Starres, the Sunnne, the Skye whom thou admirest, alas, have no colour, but are faire, because they seem to bee coloured: If this seeming will not satisfie thee in her, thou hast good assurance of her colour, when thous seest her lay it on. If her face be painted on a Boord or Wall, thou wilt love it, and the Boord, and the Wall: Canst thou loath it then when it speakes, smiles, and kisses, because it is painted? Are wee not more delighted with seeing Birds, Fruites, and Beasts painted than wee are with Naturalls? And doe wee not with pleasure behold the painted shape of Monsters and Divels, whom true, we durst not regard? Wee repaire the ruines of our houses, but first cold tempests warnes us of it, and bytes us through it; wee mend the wracke and staines of our Apparell, but first our eyes, and other bodies are offended; but by this providence of Women, this is prevented. If in kissing or breathing upon her, the painting fall off, thou art angry. Wilt thou be so, if it sticke on? . . .

– John Donne (ca. 1592-95)

Anonymous British Artist
Posthumous Portrait of Sir Philip Sidney
18th century
oil on canvas
National Portrait Gallery, London

Anonymous British Artist
Queen Elizabeth I 
ca. 1592
oil on panel
National Trust, Plas Newydd, Wales

Anonymous Flemish Artist
Posthumous Portrait of Mary Queen of Scots
(Blairs Memorial Portrait)

ca. 1600
oil on canvas
Blairs Museum, Aberdeen

Anonymous British Artist
Posthumous Portrait of playwright John Fletcher
ca. 1675-1700
oil on canvas
National Portrait Gallery, London

Anonymous Spanish Artist
Son of Francisco Ramos del Manzano
17th century
oil on canvas
Museo del Prado, Madrid

Anonymous British Artist
Lady Elizabeth Gore
ca. 1705
oil on canvas
Guildhall Art Gallery, London

Anonymous British Artist
James Burgh
ca. 1755
oil on canvas
Bristol Museum and Art Gallery

Anonymous Italian Artist
Hester Lynch Piozzi née Salusbury
(better known as Mrs Thrale, friend of Samuel Johnson)

ca. 1785-86
oil on canvas
National Portrait Gallery, London

Anonymous French Printmaker
Napoleon Bonaparte reading, with Sleeping Child
ca. 1860
hand-colored lithograph
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum