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.

Lydia Smith, by Gilbert Stuart, circa 1808 - 1810

Lydia Smith (1786, Boston - 1859, Milton). The daughter of a wealthy importer, she had a most excellent education, including time spent studying with Madame Campan in Paris. In 1817 - at the age of thirty-one; rather late for a lady at that time - she married Jonathan Russell, a widower with four children. He was in the foreign service, and they would spent much time abroad, including his stays as chargé d'affaires in Paris, London, and Stockholm. The artistic and musical accomplishments suggested by her portrait by Stuart - who also tutored her - were very real; her skill as an artist was considered nearly professional.

***

Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828), the finest and most successful portraitist of the early national period of the United States.  He is, of course, best known for his many portraits of George Washington.