Sunday, October 26, 2025

Eighteenth-Century Half-Lengths

Hyacinthe Rigaud
Portrait of Swiss diplomat Lucas Schaub
1722
oil on canvas
Kunstmuseum, Basel


Joseph Highmore
Portrait of a Woman
ca. 1730-35
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Allan Ramsay
Portrait of Miss Craigie
1741
oil on canvas
Denver Art Museum

Georg Friedrich Schmidt
Portrait of Johann Nathanael Lieberkühn
1745
pastel on paper
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

William Hogarth
Portrait of the Honourable John Hamilton
1746
oil on canvas
Frick Art Museum, Pittsburgh

Andrea Soldi
Portrait of architect James Gibbs
ca. 1750
oil on canvas
Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh

Jean-Marc Nattier
Portrait of Madame de La Porte
1754
oil on canvas
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Above and below: two contemporaries (an ocean apart) with conflicting ideals of elegance, French and American. 

Jeremiah Theus
Portrait of Mrs. Thomas Lynch
1755
oil on canvas
Reynolda House Museum of American Art,
Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Alexander Roslin
Portrait of Baron Thure Leonard Klinckowström
1758
oil on canvas
Sinebrychoff Art Museum, Helsinki

Joshua Reynolds
Portrait of Arabella Penelope Reynolds
1758
oil on canvas
Portland Art Museum, Oregon

Joseph Wright of Derby
Portrait of a Woman
ca. 1760
oil on canvas
Saint Louis Art Museum

Thomas Gainsborough
Portrait of Joshua Grigby
ca. 1760-65
oil on canvas
Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Jean-Baptiste Perronneau
Portrait of a Woman
1768
oil on canvas
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh

Anonymous British Maker
Riding Habit
ca. 1770
wool twill
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

George Romney
Portrait of Miss Kirkpatrick
ca. 1772
oil on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Antoine Vestier
Portrait of a Cellist
1788
oil on canvas
Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona

Pierre-Étienne Lesueur
Portrait of painter Louis Thomassin
1798
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau

Inviting a Friend to Supper

To night, grave sir, both my poore house, and I
    Doe equally desire your companie:
Not that we thinke us worthy such a ghest,
    But that your worth will dignifie our feast,
With those that come; whose grace may make that seeme
    Something, which, else, could hope for no esteeme.
It is the faire acceptance, Sir, creates
    The entertaynment perfect: not the cates. 
Yet shall you have, to rectifie your palate,
    An olive, capers, or some better sallade
Ushring the mutton; with a short-leg'd hen,
    If we can get her, full of egs, and then,
Limons, and wine for sauce: to these, a coney
    Is not to be despair'd of, for our money;
And, though fowle, now, be scarce, yet there are clarkes,
    The skie not falling, thinke we may have larkes. 
Ile tell  you of more, and lye, so you will come;
    Of partrich, pheasant, wood-cock, of which some
May yet be there; and godwit, if we can:
    Knat, raile, and ruffle too. How so ere, my man
Shall reade a piece of Virgil, Tacitus,
    Livie, or of some better booke to us,
Of which wee'll speake our minds, amidst our meate;
    And Ile professe no verses to repeate:
To this, if ought appeare, which I not know of,
    That will the pastrie, not my paper, show of.
Digestive cheese, and fruit there sure will bee;
    But that, which most doth take my Muse, and mee,
Is a pure cup of rich Canary-wine,
    Which is the Mermaids, now, but shall be mine:
Of which had Horace, or Anacreon tasted,
    Their lives, as doe their lines, till now had lasted.
Tabacco, Nectar, or the Thespian spring,
    Are all but Luthers beere, to this I sing.
Of this we will sup free, but moderately,
    And we will have no Pooly, or Parrot by;
Nor shall our cups make any guiltie men;
    But, at our parting, we will be, as when
We innocently met. No simple word
    That shall be utter'd at our mirthfull boord,
Shall make us sad next morning: or affright
    The libertie, that wee'll enjoy tonight.

– Martial (AD 40-104), as adapted and translated by Ben Jonson (1616)