A member has sent in the following query regarding Kneller’s backgrounds, looking for thoughts and comments: I am seeking to understand Kneller’s use of backgrounds in his portraits: were they realistic, symbolic or pure imagination? I am asking in reference to this portrait of the Earl Bathurst, then the Lord Bathurst. I’m researching Chichester Park, […]
Colleagues at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, have posted an image of their portrait by Herman Verelst, dated 1688. On reverse of the frame are labels reading “Mrs. Burslem [crossed out: Barnardiston] / from Mrs. Smith” and “Boddam-Whetham”. They welcome any thoughts regarding the possible identity of the sitter. […]
A query from Valence House Museum: This portrait is described as Mrs Mary Linsdell (b.1805) and her daughter Annie (b.1841) and was donated in 1942 by Annie’s son-in-law. Annie was the fifth child and third daughter of Mary and her husband Thomas. The portrait is by John Robert Wildman – portrait, landscape, historical and animal […]
Art Detective aims to improve knowledge of the UK’s public art collection. It is a free-to-use online network that connects public art collections with members of the public and providers of specialist knowledge. Launched in March 2014, Art Detective comprises a digital network built on top of the Public Catalogue Foundation’s (PCF) existing art object […]
Independent researcher Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell has posed the following query. “I’m looking for 18th-century portraits that have had their hairstyles repainted; frequently, the very large coiffures fashionable for women in the 1770s and 1780s were either added or effaced. Romney’s c. 1780s portrait of Mrs. Andrew Reid from the Kimbell Art Museum with a hairstyle of […]
“I’m trying to decipher a detail in a Dom Pedro I (1798-1834) portrait, done by Brazilian artist Benedito Calixto, belonging to Museu Paulista Collection. I am familiar with the uses of gloves in traditional portraits, but I cannot find any precedent for this particular display of the gloves, put between the jacket’s buttons. The portrait […]
