10 Portraits

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A recent post by Mark Ruffner writing the blog All Things Ruffnerian-prompted me to take up this challenge to cull through countless Portraits of Women & fantasize - If I could own 10 ?, which would I choose? Mark followed suit after Yvette of In So Many Words-did the same. You can see where this is going... While I still stretch my imagination on where to hang them & worry about negotiating with the Met, the Hermitage and likewise-I found narrowing down my choices difficult. No portrait-its value-its obscurity or its notoriety has been excluded. A few were easy-sorting and narrowing it to a mere 10 virtually impossible.

Pure fantasy-but doesn't it exercise the eye? Force us to edit-in a world where pinning, tumbling,blogging,linking-blinking tweeting-etc etc. allow us to gluttonous Excess?. Of course seeing Mark's picks and Yvette's IT is Temptation to say-"oh  yes, That one," but that would have been too easy. I must say it shocked me that some of my favorite portrait painters-Boldini, Whistler, Helleu did not make My List-nor did Zubaran-I immediately excluded his paintings of Saints-choosing just ONE would be treasonous-and choosing 10-unfair.


(The 10-in no particular order & linked in the text with insights about the work)

Petrus Christus, Portrait of a Young Girl

 c 1470.

what can I say? it might be my favorite of them all. It fits the Bacon quote at the heading of this experiment like no other.

El Greco's Lady in a Fur Wrap

c.1580

El Greco? Yes, one of his mysterious paintings of women-there are few. Uncharacteristic,yet his brush is evident-and while there are disputes about that-it's all the more reason to want it.

 Ingres' Mademoiselle Rivière

 c.1805

Ingres, for me the Master portrait painter-this is one of two Ingres paintings I've included. Can you deny it?

 Liotard's Portrait of Marie Fargues, his wife

 c. 1749

This portrait satisfies all things- sitter, dress, complexity of patterns, book, flowers and mirror. The 18th century was a period where women like Mary Wortley Montague were forging paths of individualism and leaving brilliant trails of their lives in memoirs and letters. Liotard painted many women of the period in Eastern dress. Almost any of Liotard's paintings would suffice-I would be content with 10 of them.

Sir Joshua Reynold's Mrs. Baldwin

c. 1782

Another painter I would not leave off any list-Reynolds and again it  is the 18th century with its certain brand of  Beauty and its allure of Exoticism.

Ingres' The Comtesse D'Haussonville, née Louise de Broglie

c.1845

It's charms are evident.the Comtesse d' Haussonville, grand-daughter of Madame de Stael- one of the most fascinating women in Europe," was also a remarkable person in her own right.
(I've written about her here & Ingres here)

Sargent's Madame X,  Virginie Gautreau

 

c.1884

Sargent. This portrait- his most memorable and he considered his best- was also his most controversial. Of course I would pick this one.Virginie Gautreau was not happy with the portrait-it revealed too much-much too much. Eager to paint her Sargent wrote a friend, "I have a great desire to paint her portrait and have reason to think she would allow it and is waiting for someone to propose this homage to her beauty. If you are 'bien avec elle' and will see her in Paris, you might tell her I am a man of prodigious talent." Books have been written about the painting. Sargent is another great favorite and I've devoted many posts to my intrigue with Sargent in a series called seeking Sargent -where images today remind me of his work, here.

I have a lithograph of Sargent by William Rothenstein  I love.

Portrait of Emilie Flöge, by Gustav Klimt

c. 1902

Model, muse and partner-Floge and Klimt were priest and priestess in turn of the century Vienna when everything was wonderful and art was everything.

 Balthus' "Japanese woman with red table," Countess Setzuko Klossowska de Rola,the artist's wife.

 c. 1967

This painting until recently was owned by Helene Rochas and sold at auction this fall. I wrote about it here.

Picasso's Nusch Éluard 

c. 1938

Picasso painted Nusch Elard numerous times-muse to the Surrealists, artist in her own right. The great painter painting a painter with a personal story as intriguing as the great one himself- no wonder he adored her. Picasso is the great painter of all time-here-Barbara of It's About Time shows you why-and would have me tossing out this entire list to have 10 portraits on scraps of paper with "Picasso" signed in the corner.

& No list is worth listing- without adding 1 to-

Lady with an Ermine (Cecilia Gallerani) - Leonardo da Vinci

c.1490

 

If it couldn't be a Lady with dog-a Renaissance ermine will do.

& as dual portraits go...

who could resist

 this portrait of  Monsieur & Mademoiselle?

Liotard's "Monsieur Levett and Mademoiselle Glavani in Turkish costume

or 
Sargent's Mr. and Mrs. I. N. Phelps Stokes, 1897
it is another favorite Sargent- with two fascinating subjects

I've written about Edith here

 & Yes, I fantasize about 10 Men too-

alas,Correggio's fetching Portrait of a Young Man did not make the cut.

Now-what about you? Do you have a favorite from my 10? your own?




.

winged spring

 

“There shall be wings! 

If the accomplishment be not for me, 'tis for some other.”

da Vinci

 

edward burne jones

 

“Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, 

still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.”

victor hugo

image from the Corinthian Column

“The reason birds can fly 

and we can't is simply that they have perfect faith, 

for to have faith is to have wings”

j m barrie

albrecht durer

“The day is done, and the darkness, 

Falls from the wings of Night, 

As a feather is wafted downward, 

From an eagle in his flight”

longfellow

da Vinci

 

“There is nothing holier in this life of ours 

than the first consciousness of love, 

the first fluttering of its silken wings.”

longfellow

burne jones image from here

durer image here

da vinci image here

Livia's Laurels

Death of Lord Byron
Joseph-Denis Odevaere

XXXV.

Ferrara! in thy wide and grass-grown streets, Whose symmetry was not for solitude, There seems as t'were a curse upon the seats of former sovereigns, and the antique brood of Este, which for many an age made good

Its strength within thy walls, and was of yore Patron or tyrant, as the changing mood Of petty power impell'd, of those he wore The wreath which Dante's brow alone had worn before.

XLI.

The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust The iron crown of laurel's mimic'd leaves; Nor was the ominous element unjust.

For the true laurel wreath which glory weaves is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves, And the false semblance but disgraced his brow; Yet still, if fondly superstition grieves, Know that the lightning sanctifies below Whate'er it strikes yon head is doubly sacred now.

from CHILDE HAROLD"S PILGRIMAGE

**Byron's Wreath of Laurel**

Wreaths of laurel on a victor's brow began with Livia Drusilla, wife of Caesar Augustus. "A hen of remarkable whiteness... was holding in its beak a laurel branch bearing its berries" and dropped the branch at Livia's feet. From this time onward, the bird and her offspring resided in nests, at the Poultry on the Tiber where the laurel branch was planted and propagated..."The laurel grove so begun has thriven in a marvelous way..."

From this time, all the Caesars appeared in triumph & held a laurel branch from the original tree in his hand and wore laurel wreath upon his head-and planted the branch. Pliny the Elder

Caesar Augustus

detail from Vermeer's The Art of Painting
close up of Clio, Muse of History

Portrait of a Woman Wearing a Laurel Wreath

Rosalba Giovanna Carriera

Da Vinci's Wreath of Laurel, Palm and Juniper

Dante Alighieri by Sandro Botticelli

try one of Livia's laurels on.

Cesar

Helena



Amour


all by
Louis Mariette

"Nod to ancient elegance in Louis Mariette's detailed headbands. Take inspiration from the classics and pair it with a draped maxi dress for the ultimate in Grecian glamour." from net a porter

** ** Byron's Wreath of Laurel photograph from (here) and Patrick Hunt (here)