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| Anonymous Flemish Artist Emperor Charles V ca. 1515 oil on panel Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
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| 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 |
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| Anonymous Flemish Artist William Paget, 1st Baron Paget de Beaudesert 1549 oil on panel National Trust, Plas Newydd, Wales |
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| Anonymous Italian Artist Orazio Farnese, Duke of Castro ca. 1550 oil on slate National Trust, Upton House, Oxfordshire |
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| 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)
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| Anonymous British Artist Posthumous Portrait of Sir Philip Sidney 18th century oil on canvas National Portrait Gallery, London |
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| Anonymous British Artist Queen Elizabeth I ca. 1592 oil on panel National Trust, Plas Newydd, Wales |
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| Anonymous Flemish Artist Posthumous Portrait of Mary Queen of Scots (Blairs Memorial Portrait) ca. 1600 oil on canvas Blairs Museum, Aberdeen |
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| Anonymous British Artist Posthumous Portrait of playwright John Fletcher ca. 1675-1700 oil on canvas National Portrait Gallery, London |
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| Anonymous Spanish Artist Son of Francisco Ramos del Manzano 17th century oil on canvas Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Anonymous British Artist Lady Elizabeth Gore ca. 1705 oil on canvas Guildhall Art Gallery, London |
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| Anonymous British Artist James Burgh ca. 1755 oil on canvas Bristol Museum and Art Gallery |
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| 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 |
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| Anonymous French Printmaker Napoleon Bonaparte reading, with Sleeping Child ca. 1860 hand-colored lithograph Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |