Saturday, January 24, 2026

Ovals (Artistic)

Pier Francesco Foschi
Portrait of a Woman
ca. 1540
oil on panel
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam


Thomas Forster
Miniature Portrait of a Man
1700
graphite on vellum (plumbago)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Thomas Forster
Miniature Portrait of a Woman
1700
graphite on vellum (plumbago)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

John Smart
Miniature Portrait of Anne Woodruffe Guidott
1778
watercolor on ivory
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

John Downman
Portrait of Susan Rushbrooke
ca. 1778
oil on copper
Denver Art Museum

Anonymous Painter
Miniature Portrait of Martha Battle Fort
ca. 1835
watercolor on ivory
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Anonymous Painter
Miniature Portrait of Zachariah F. Johnston
ca. 1840
watercolor on ivory
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Anonymous Painter
Miniature Portrait of Dolores Fonseca
ca. 1840
watercolor on ivory
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Anonymous Photographer
Portrait of a Woman
ca. 1850
hand-colored salted paper print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Anonymous Photographer
Harriet Beecher Stowe
1852
daguerreotype
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Anonymous Photographer
Mother and Son
ca. 1855
hand-colored daguerreotype
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Anonymous Photographer
Portrait of a Couple
ca. 1856
hand-colored tintype
Archives of American Art, Washington DC

McClees & Vannerson (Washington, DC)
Alexander Hamilton Stephens
1858
salted paper print
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Anonymous Photographer
Portrait of a Girl
ca. 1860
hand-colored salted paper print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Anonymous Photographer
Carmen Alvarado Ghirardelli
ca. 1860
salted paper print
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Anonymous Photographer
Joseph Herron, Janitor of Smithsonian
(disabled Civil War veteran)
ca. 1875-80
albumen print (carte-de-visite)
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Washington DC

John Singer Sargent
Portrait of Betty Wertheimer
1908
oil on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

from The Lamentation for Adonis, imitated out of the Greek of Bion of Smyrna

Venus has lost her Lover, and each grace,
That sate before in triumph on her face,
By grief chas'd thence, has now forsook the place.
That day which snatch'd Adonis from her arms,
That day bereft the Goddess of her charms.
    The Woods and Trees in murmuring sighs bemoan
    The fate of her Adonis dead and gone.
The Rivers too, as if they would deplore
His death, with grief swell higher than before:
The Flowers weep in tears of dreary dew,
And by their drooping heads their sorrow shew:
But most the Cyprian Queen with shrieks, and groans,
Fills all the neighb'ring Hills, and Vales, and Towns:
The poor Adonis dead! is all her cry,
Adonis dead! sad Echo does reply.

– Bion (late 2nd century BC), translated by John Oldham (1681)