Randomly

Jupiter Disguised as Diana Seducing Callisto, by Gerrit van Honthorst, circa 1625-1650.

I have a blog-post folder and several sub-folders on my computer. As I flounce about the internet, whenever I find an image, anything I find beautiful or intriguing, I copy it - if I can - and toss it into one of my blog-related folders. Perhaps you can guess where this acquisitiveness has led me. The folders are now very full. So full that I have ever more difficulty finding, sorting things. Difficulty seeing the visual or thematic threads that I would gather together to make up a post. So, along with better organizing - yet more sub-folders - from now on, every so often I'll try and do a bit of theme-less, story-less sharing. These, then, are some images I really enjoy. That is all!

The Marriage of Napoléon I and Marie Louise, 2 April 1810, by Georges Rouget, 1811.

Miniature by Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, circa late 1780s.

Photograph identified as being taken in Tokyo during the Thirties.

Mirza Abu'l Hassan Khan, Ambassador for the Shah of Persia, by William Beechey, 1809 or 1810.

Portrait of a Young Woman, by Giovanni Battista Moroni, circa 1560s-70s.

Irina Alexandrovna, Princess Yusupova, by Edward Steichen, 1924.

Lydia Pickering Williams, by Gilbert Stuart, 1824.

Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier, Catalina, 1939.

Elisabeth Farnese, Princess of Parma and Queen of Spain, by Jean Ranc, 1723.

The Surprise, by Claude-Marie Dubufe, before 1827.

The Guitarist, by Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1757.

Augusta, Duchess of Cambridge, by William Beechey, 1818.

Michèle Morgan, circa 1941.

Jean-Louis Buisson-Boissier, by Jean-Étienne Liotard, circa 1762-66.

Carolina Grassi and Bianca Bignami, the sisters Gabrini, by Francesco Hayez,1835.

St. Petersburg (?), circa prior to 1914.

Louis-Philippe Refuses the Crown of Belgium, 17 February 1831, by Nicolas Gosse, 1836.

Miniature by Louis-Lié Périn-Salbreux, circa 1790s.

Charles-Roger prince de Bauffremont-Listenois, by Labille-Guiard, 1791

This portrait of Charles-Roger prince de Bauffremont-Listenois (4 October 1713, Paris - 21 March 1795, Cézy) by Adélaïde Labille-Guiard was exhibited at the Salon of 1791, two year after the beginning of the French Revolution.  Apparently commissioned to commemorate the prince's admission into the chivalric Order of the Golden Fleece - the Toison d'Or - the portrait's commission and subsequent public display were strangely dissonant with the radical politics of the day.  In fact, considering the boldly hierarchical nature of the portrait, it's rather amazing that both the sitter and the artist managed to survive the Reign of Terror, two years later.

At the top of the painting are listed all the prince's various titles, orders, and awards.  For some reason, the painter
decided to omit the other finial of the chair back.  (The picture's frame, in my opinion, is really quite ghastly.)

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Adélaïde Labille-Guiard (11 April 1749, Paris – 24 April 1803, Paris), French portrait painter and miniaturist, who was, along with Vigée Le Brun, the most important female artist at the end of the eighteenth century.  Little is known of her early training, but from1769 she apprenticed with the pastel master Quentin de la Tour for five years.  She was accepted into the Royal Academy in 1783 - on the same day as Vigée Le Brun, with whose work hers is often compared - and soon came under the important patronage of Madame Adélaïde, one of the king's powerful aunts.  During the Revolution she adapted to her much altered situation, exhibiting portraits of the new leadership - including Robespierre - and overcame the taint of her former strongly royalist connections.

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Fauteuil à la reine attributed to Georges Jacob, circa 1785.  (Upholstery not original.)

In his portrait, the prince is seated in a very particular chair, seemingly identical to one above, now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum.  Attributed to Jacob, a chair of the same design appears in Labille-Guiard's 1787 portrait of Madame Adélaïde. (Covered in green velvet, in both instances.)