"Put a feather in his (or her) cap..." - twelve be-plumed portraits.

 

Princess Charlotte of Wales, Princess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, by Alfred Edward Chalon, circa 1817-19.

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Gustave Courtois at the age of Thirty-One, by Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret, 1883.

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Julia, Lady Peel, by Sir Thomas Lawrence, 1827.

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Self-portrait, by Charles Gleyre, 1834.

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Portrait of an unknown lady with a dog, unknown Polish (?) artist, circa 1780-90s.

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Don Miguel de Castro, Congolese ambassador to the Netherlands, by Jaspar Beckx, circa 1643.

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 Dame aux plumes, by Georges Jacquemotte, circa 1900-10.

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Young Man with a Feather in his Hat, by Corneille de Lyon, circa third quarter of the sixteenth century.

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Portrait of an unknown lady, unknown artist, circa 1830s.

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Pes-Ke-Le-Cha-Co, Chief of the Pawnees, by Henry Inman, circa 1832-33.

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Maria Cristina of Naples and Sicily, Duchess of Genoa, later Queen of Sardinia, by Giacomo Berger, 1816.

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An Old Man in Military Costume, by Rembrandt, circa 1630-31.

As knowing the world would see them - selections from "The Young Farmer," photographs by August Sander

Young Farmers, circa 1925-27.

From the portfolio "The Young Farmer" from Sanders' "People of the Twentieth Century", in the collection of MoMA. One of the many things I find interesting about these images is how thoroughly they confound the expectations of how one might suppose an early twentieth-century "farmer" will be portrayed, both in dress and setting. None are pictured behind a plow, none in their shabby work clothes. Quite the contrary, almost all are dressed in their very best, posed in a dignified manner, displaying an elegant and artfully contrived ease. 

Young Farmer, circa 1911-14.

Rural Brother and Sister, circa 1925-30.

Country Lads from the Westerwald, 1912.

Young Farmer, circa 1912-13.

Hikers on the Hohenseelbachskopf, 1892.

Young Farmer, 1914.

Young Farmers, or Three Young Farmers on Their Way to a Dance, Westerwald, 1914.
(One of Sanders' best known images, apparently none of these three gentlemen were actually farmers. Two worked in a mine, and the third in the mine's office. )

Young Farmers on Sunday, 1926.

Young Farmers, 1926.

What they call the role of a lifetime - Doris Keane in "Romance"

 

A promotional post card featuring a portrait by Charles Buchel.

Five character portraits by Herman Mishkin, 1913.

Autochrome by Arnold Genthe, 1913.

Doris Keane (12 December 1881, St. Joseph, Michigan – 25 November 1945, New York City), American theatrical actress. Educated largely in Europe, she first began appearing in supporting roles in 1903, and within five years had risen to leading status. But it was in 1913 that she was given the role with which she would forever after be associated, the capricious and tender opera singer Margherita Cavallini in Edward Sheldon's Romance. A great success on Broadway, the play opened in London two years later and ran for an astonishing 1,049 performances. She was lauded by the London critics, and the public seemed never to tire of the play or the actress; she was even portrayed a number of times as Cavallini in figurines by Royal Doulton. Keane was successful in other roles, but returned regularly in revivals of the play throughout the next decade: 1921, 1926, and 1927. 

 

Apparently, a monkey was among the cast members.

Front and back of another promotional post card. I haven't been able to discover the portrait's author.

Sheldon, the playwright, fell in love with his star, though his feelings, which are said to have lasted the rest of his life, were unrequited. Keane had one child, a daughter Ronda, born in Cannes in 1915; financier Howard Gould acknowledged paternity but the couple never married. Three years later she married actor Basil Sydney, thirteen years her junior. He starred with her in a silent film of Romance - her only film appearance - in 1920, as well as the revival of the play the following year. They divorced in 1925. 

Keane was painted by Philip de László in 1916. The present location of the portrait is unknown and is, so far, not included in the artist's catalogue raisonné.

Three Royal Doulton figurines of Keane as Cavallini.

With her co-star and husband, Basil Sydney, on the cover of Picture Show magazine, promoting the film version of Romance, 1921.

I haven't been able to find any information about the final two decades of her life. But she died at the age of sixty-three while being treated for cancer. She was cremated and buried on Martha's Vineyard. Her daughter's ashes were joined with hers when Ronda died sixty-three years later.

Another promotional postcard featuring a detail of the Buchel portrait.

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In 1930, in only her second "Talkie", Garbo starred as the opera singer in the second film version of Romance. Her performance was appreciated well enough to warrant an Academy Award nomination, but it's one of her least remembered films now. It's generally felt that the character of the dramatic prima donna didn't really suit the sober Swede.

"Gowns by Adrian", not surprisingly. But rather than Clarence Sinclair Bull, the portraits were taken by George Hurrell, the only time they worked together.

A prince of Portugal at fourteen - studio of Anthonis Mor, circa 1552

 

Dom João Manuel, Prince of Portugal (3 June 1537 – 2 January 1554), Portuguese infante, the eighth child of King João III of Portugal by his wife Catarina of Austria, herself the daughter of Philip I of Castile. João Manuel was born in the Royal Palace of Évora and became the heir to the throne of Portugal at the age of two. He had survived his four older brothers who died in early childhood, though he was a sickly child as well. Of his parents' nine children he and his elder sister Maria Manuela were the only ones to survive past the age of six years old, and all of his siblings predeceased him. It is believed that the successive inter-marriages between the houses of Spain and Portugal were probably responsible for the ill health and early deaths of the children. In January of 1552, at the age of fourteen, he married Princess Joanna of Spain, his first cousin - twice over, through both the paternal and maternal lines. João Manuel died almost exactly two years later at the age of sixteen, probably of tuberculosis, although it's possible the cause was diabetes, a disease that had afflicted his maternal grandfather. Eighteen days later his only child, a son, was born; the child would survive and go on to reign as King Sebastião I of Portugal.

This portrait is part of the Royal Collection and is a contemporary replica of the lost original, destroyed by fire at the palace of El Pardo in 1604. This is one of two known replicas, both of which would have been executed under the artist’s direct supervision in Portugal. Thought to be created in order to be used as part of the prince's marriage negotiations, the painting moved between various royal collections in Portugal and Spain until, in the 1830s, it entered that of Louis-Philippe, King of the French, who had it displayed in his "Galerie Espagnole" in the Louvre. Queen Victoria purchased it from the deposed monarch's estate in 1853.