Portraiture

Sisterly duty: The Painter’s Daughters, by Emily Howes, reviewed

24 February 2024 9:00 am

In a celebrated portrait of his daughters, Thomas Gainsborough shows the older child protecting her sister from harm. The roles would be dramatically reversed in later life

Why did this brilliant Irish artist fall off the radar?

28 October 2023 9:00 am

Sir John Lavery has always had a place in Irish affections. His depiction of his wife, Hazel, as the mythical…

Proof that Rubens really was a champion of the female sex: Rubens & Women, at the Dulwich Picture Gallery reviewed

14 October 2023 9:00 am

‘She is a princess endowed with all the virtues of sex; long experience has taught her how to govern these…

Why is Frans Hals still not considered the equal of Rembrandt?

16 September 2023 9:00 am

Why is Frans Hals still not considered the equal of Rembrandt, asks Craig Raine

Joshua Reynolds’s revival

1 July 2023 9:00 am

In front of the banner advertising the RA Summer Exhibition, the swagger statue of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-92) by Alfred…

The women’s lips are pursed; the men’s are kissable: Glyn Philpot at Pallant House reviewed

25 June 2022 9:00 am

Of all the photos of artists in the studio, the one of Glyn Philpot being served a martini by his…

The magic of champagne

15 January 2022 9:00 am

The four portraits of four siblings that Catriona had painted from their photographs over four months were framed, hung and…

The genius of Frans Hals

9 October 2021 9:00 am

Since art auctions were invented, they have served to hype artists’ prices. It can happen during an artist’s lifetime —…

Was I the picture of evil incarnate?

4 September 2021 9:00 am

Not long after Catriona and I first met, her husband painted my head and shoulders portrait in oils as I…

From light into darkness: the genius of Goya

14 November 2020 9:00 am

The great Spanish artist Francisco Goya was born in Zaragoza in 1746, the son of a gilder whose livelihood was…

Pyramids of piffle: Tate Britain’s British Baroque reviewed

15 February 2020 9:00 am

British Baroque: it was never going to fly. Les rosbifs emulating the splendour of le Roi Soleil? Pas possible. Still,…

A mesmerising retrospective: Victoria Crowe at City Art Centre, Edinburgh, reviewed

25 May 2019 9:00 am

This mesmerising retrospective takes up three floors of the City Art Centre, moving in distinct stages from the reedy flanks…

‘Little Girl in a Blue Armchair’, 1878, by Mary Cassatt

No one can beat Mary Cassatt at painting mothers and children

5 May 2018 9:00 am

A lady licking an envelope. An intimate thing. It might be only the bill from the coal-man she’s paying, but…

Self-portrait, with his wife Margaret

A dazzling vision

12 August 2017 9:00 am

There are a number of reports by his contemporaries of Thomas Gainsborough at work. They make you realise what a…

‘Oh god, ma tutto occupato’ (Ach herrje, ma tutto occupato), 2016, by Georg Baselitz

As he approaches 80, the German master Georg Baselitz contemplates the end

21 May 2016 9:00 am

‘In many ways,’ Georg Baselitz muses, ‘I behaved against the grain of the times I grew up in.’ The era…

Why did Goya’s sitters put up with his brutal honesty?

10 October 2015 9:00 am

Sometimes, contrary to a widespread suspicion, critics do get it right. On 17 August, 1798 an anonymous contributor to the…

Detail of a maiolica vase, c.1565–1571, a star piece for both Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill and later for Baron Ferdinand at Waddesdon Manor

Forget Vienna - Britain now has its own chamber of curiosities at the British Museum

11 July 2015 9:00 am

Art is not jewellery. Its value does not reside in the price of the materials from which it is made.…

‘Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington’, 1829, by Sir Thomas Lawrence

Wellington's PR machine

28 March 2015 9:00 am

The history of portraiture is festooned with images of sitters overwhelmed by dress, setting and the accoutrements of worldly success.…

‘Gian Girolamo Albani’, c.1570, by Giovanni Battista Moroni

Without a model, Moroni could be stunningly dull. With one, he was peerless...

15 November 2014 9:00 am

Giovanni Battista Moroni, wrote Bernard Berenson, was ‘the only mere portrait painter that Italy has ever produced’. Indeed, Berenson continued,…

‘While some observers were impressed, others felt the depiction of a doddery Churchill propped up on a walking stick unbecoming’

The lost Victorian who sculpted Churchill

16 August 2014 9:00 am

Ivor Roberts-Jones was in many ways the right artist at the wrong time. Had the sculptor been born a few…

‘Lady Sarah Bunbury Sacrificing to the Graces’ by Sir Joshua Reynolds

Reynolds produced some of the finest portraits of the 18th century – and a few of the silliest

9 August 2014 9:00 am

On Monday 21 April 1760 Joshua Reynolds had a busy day. Through the morning and the afternoon he had a…