Offspring, multiplied - portraits of siblings, 1604-1940

Porträt eines Geschwisterpaares, by Hermann Dörmann, 1940.

 Jacques-Victor Henry, Françoise-Améthyste, and Anne-Athénaïre, children of Henri Christophe, king of Haiti, by an unknown artist, circa 1816-20.

 Three children, by John F. Francis, 1840.

Anna Maria Astley, aged seven, and her brother Edward, aged five and a half, by Francis Cotes, 1767.

Thomas Francis Jeune Hanbury and Hanmer Cecil Hanbury, by Augustus John, circa 1926.

Brother and sister, attributed to Cornelis Ketel, circa 1604.

Brothers, 2nd century Egyptian.

Two brothers, by Ralph Earl, 1783.

Doppelporträt der Töchter des Künstlers, Marie und Hedwig Knaus, by Ludwig Knaus, 1864.

Julija Primic and her brother Janez, by Matevž Langus, circa 1820.

Siblings with dog, attributed to Just Jean Christian Holm, 1884.

Alfonso el Caro and Ana Margarita, by Bartolomé González y Serrano, 1613.

Siblings, by Karl Jakob Theodor Leybold, 1823.

Cornelia, Clara, and Johanna Veth, the artist's sisters, by Jan Veth, 1885.

Isabella and John Stewart, by Wold Traut, circa 1773-1774.

The children of the duc de Chartres, by Gabriel Ferrier, 1880.

The children of Hans and Lisa Hahnloser, by Félix Vallotton, 1912.

Siblings, by George Augustus Baker Jr., 1853.

 Richard and Anne Willis, eldest twin children of Richard Willis, by Joseph Blackburn, 1778.

 Marie-Catherine and Eugène Giroust, by Louis-Léopold Boilly, circa 1803.

The Henderson children, by Carl Christian Heinrich Nahl, circa 1850s.

 Darbar scene with four sons and two grandsons of Shah Jahan, by Bhavanidas, circa 1710.

Siblings - on the reverse inscribed Jakle Emil, Adrienne, Melanie, Valerie, by Ernst Christian Moser, circa 1850s.

Brothers, by Malvin Gray Johnson, 1934.

Jeannette "Jean" MacKelvie (married name Sclater-Booth) and her brother Neil Stewart MacKelvie, by Harrington Mann, 1916.

Three Children in a Landscape, by Jacob Gerritszoon Cuyp, 1635.

The Raymond children, by Deacon Robert Peckham, circa 1838.

Two children, said to be Emily and Robert Cecil, attributed to Johann Kerseboom, circa 1690.

The Sisters (Bessie and Clara Stillman), by Abbott Handerson Thayer, 1884.

Willoughby and Arthur Wood, by Sir Henry Raeburn, 1824.

The children of Sir Edward Walpole, by Stephen Slaughter, 1747.

 Adam Vilhelm, Pauline Frederikke, and Johan Chr. Julius, the children of C.F. Holm, by Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, 1832.

Prescott and Mary Scott, by Enoch Wood Perry Jr.,1881.

Taco Hajo van den Honert and his sister Henriette Cornelia van den Honert, by Philip de László, 1905.

Siblings, by Carl Wilhelm Tischbein, circa 1815-25.

Siblings, by František Brunner- Dvořák, 1912.

Paul and Charlotte, children of the artist, by Lucien J. Simon, circa 1899.

 Portrait of three princesses from Mysore, by Thomas Hickey, circa 1805. (Full disclosure: the one in the middle may be a sister-in-law.)

Lewis and Alexander Beauvais, miniature by William Wood, 1801.

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When I'm putting together a blog post I try to always remember that the history of art is not exclusively the story of white artists - white male artists - making pictures of white people. Because when you start searching for images online, you might come to that conclusion. The fairly narrow theme of this post was non-contemporary paintings of siblings; I didn't want photographs this time, and I didn't want parents or others included in the work. Still, I easily found a lot to choose from. But it soon became obvious that they were all adorable white children, only white children. So I got more specific in my search. Maybe my search technique is poor, but I found next to nothing; I found plenty of photographs and contemporary portraits of non-white siblings, but no paintings. I'm sure there are reasons for this, historic, economic and societal; who, where, and when have parents gone to the trouble - and expense - of having their children "immortalized" in a painted portrait? At any rate, the gathering of images to meet my criteria was rather frustrating. All this to say that I apologize for the lack of diversity in this group.

Kleines Mädchen zeigt dem Geschwisterchen eine Schildkröte, by Thomas "Tom" von Dreger, 1898 or 1906.
I couldn't find a better/larger image, but had to include it anyway.