Females of the species - miscellaneous portraits of women and girls, circa 1750-1960

Portrait of a lady, by Józef Męcina-Krzesz, 1920.

Princess Augusta of Bavaria with her daughters Joséphine and Eugénie, by Andrea Appiani, 1809.

Princess Joséphine, the future queen of Sweden and Norway, points to the location in Hungary where her father, Prince Eugène de Beauharnais,
Viceroy of Italy and stepson of Napoléon, led a military victory against the Austrian army at the Battle of Raab, 14 June 1809. 

Alda Weston, Lady Hoare, in a Green Cloak, by St. George Hare, 1909-10.

Karoline von Schlotheim, by Wilhelm Böttner, 1788.

The sisters Karolina and Anna Strauss, ballet dancers from the Teatr Wielki, Warsaw, by Jan Ksawery Kaniewskicirca, 1853.

Queen María Cristina of Spain, by José Moreno Carbonero, 1906.

^ Her daughter-in-law, Queen Victoria Eugénie of Spain, by José Moreno Carbonero, 1912.

The painter and the portrait.

The daughters of Puerto Rican governor Ramón de Castro, by José Campeche y Jordán,1797.

Marie Antoinette as a Vestal Virgin, by François Dumont, circa 1791 or later. There are several versions of this, some if not most created after her death.

Zinaida Ivanova, comtesse de Chauveau, formerly Princess Yussupova (née Narishkina), by Gerasim Ignatievich Kadunov, 1858.

Marina, Duchess of Kent, by Simon Elwes, circa 1955-60.

In 1945, at the height of his career, Elwes suffered a near-fatal stroke which paralyzed his right side, including
his painting hand. He re-taught himself to paint with his left and went on to even greater success.

The Chinese Girl, also known as The Green Lady, Monika Pon-su-san, by Vladimir Tretchikoff, 1952.

Portrait of Zofia with cacti, by Tadeusz Pruszkowski, 1920.

Possibly Claire Josèphe Hippolyte Léris de Latude, a French actress known professionally as mademoiselle Clairon, by Maurice Quentin de La Tour, circa 1750.

 Octavie Wylezynska, baronne de Löwenthal, by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, 1859.

Eugenii Dunin-Borkowskiej, by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, also known as "Witkacy", 1912.

Marie-Thérése Charlotte of France, dauphine and duchesse d'Angoulême, by Antoine-Jean Gros, 1816.

Grand Duchess Sergei, Elisaveta Feodorovna, by Friedrich August von Kaulbach, circa 1892.

^ Her niece and ward, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, Princess Wilhelm, Duchess of Södermanland, by Bernhard Österman, 1913.

Young Woman with a Fan, by Simon Maris, circa 1906. The model appears to be wearing an early 19th-century costume.

 Mrs. Frederick L. Pratt, neé Jeannie Williams, by Philip de László, 1928.

^ Her sister-in-law, Mrs. Robert Livingston Fryer, neé Melissa Dodge Pratt, by Philip de László, 1923.

Portrait de l'impératrice Eugénie en costume de dogaresse, the Empress Eugénie in a Venetian-style costume she wore to a ball on 9 February 1863.
The genre photographer "Marck" added - in oil paint - color and an imaginary Venetian background to the original photograph.

Circa 1850s.

Royal Spain - portraits of the Spanish Royal Family by Philip de László, 1910-27

Alfonso XIII - Alfonso León Fernando María Jaime Isidro Pascual Antonio de Borbón y Habsburgo-Lorena - King of Spain, 1927.

Queen Victoria Eugenie, née Victoria Eugenie Julia Ena of Battenburg, 1926.

De László, that incredibly prolific Hugarian, painted nearly all the crowned heads of Europe in his day. And the Spanish Royal Family certainly got more "coverage" than most. He painted King Alfonso XIII and Queen Victoria Eugenie on several occasions, as well as the King's mother and the couple's six children. Though this royal "family unit" was often an unhappy and even tragic one - read much of their story here, in a previous post about the Queen - they are all glamorous and self-assured in these portraits, their troubles varnished over, invisible beneath de László's glorious brushwork.

Queen Victoria Eugenie, 1910.

Alfonso XIII, 1910.

Queen Victoria Eugenie, 1912.

Dowager Queen María Cristina, née Maria Christina Henriette Desideria Felicitas Raineria of Austria, mother of the King, 1910.

Queen Victoria Eugenie, 1920.

Alfonso XIII, 1927.

Queen Victoria Eugenie, 1927.

Queen Victoria Eugenie, 1927. (Sketch for the above portrait.)

Alfonso, Príncipe de Asturias - Don Alfonso Pío Cristino Eduardo Francisco Guillermo Carlos Enrique Eugenio Fernando Antonio
Venancio de Borbón y Battenberg - at twenty, 1927.

Alfonso, Príncipe de Asturias, 1927.

Infante Jaime, Duque de Segovia, later duc d'Anjou - Don Jaime Leopoldo Isabelino Enrique Alejandro Alberto Alfonso Víctor Acacio
Pedro Pablo María de Borbón y Battenberg - at nineteen, 1927.

Infanta Beatriz - Doña Beatriz Isabel Federica Alfonsa Eugénie Cristina Maria Teresia Bienvenida Ladislàa de Borbón y
Battenberg - later Principessa di Civitella-Cesi, at eighteen, 1927.

Another portrait of Infanta Beatriz, 1927.

Infanta María Cristina - Doña María Cristina Teresa Alejandra María de Guadalupe María de la Concepción Ildefonsa Victoria
Eugenia de Borbón y Battenberg - later Contessa Marone, at sixteen, 1927.

Infante Juan, Conde de Barcelona - Don Juan Carlos Teresa Silverio Alfonso de Borbón y Battenberg - at fourteen, 1927.

Infante Gonzalo - Don Gonzalo Manuel María Bernardo Narciso Alfonso Mauricio de Borbón y Battenberg - at thirteen, 1927.

***

I spend a ridiculous amount of time gathering and prepping images for this blog. Early on, I wasn't quite so fastidious. But I quickly became more and more obsessive about the size and quality of the images; I am a visual artist after all. So I hunt and hunt, comparing the different versions of the same painting or photograph that are to be found - uncovered; it's often real detective work! - to try and get the fullest image - so many one finds are cropped - in the largest size and the best quality. And then I spend a lot of time with any necessary Photoshopping, sizing the images and cleaning them up, adjusting the color and sharpness, trying to get the very best version I can; I know how often my own paintings have been badly reproduced so, honestly, I feel a lot of responsibility to the artists whose work I'm presenting.

I see a lot of odd things out there on the internet; the various and varied filters of reproduction often do crazy things to a work of art. I thought the portrait of Infante Jaime was a particularly perverse example of this. I was lucky to find the two following images - fairly large, clear, and detailed - and then realized that they were actually the same portrait. I've examined them very, very closely, and they are the same painting; there's no way that anyone could have copied every brushstroke so exactly. And it's also clear to me that the first one is a color reproduction, not a black and white photograph of the painting tinted with color. So how is it even possible that these two are so different - and where did the red go? If I hadn't seen the second image, I'd have thought the uniform jacket was grey. The obvious defect in the second image was that the background had been so darkened that all the detail there was lost; the cast shadow behind the figure is indiscernible and the signature almost so. Neither version was really acceptable, so I melded the two images together. I hope this is something much more like what the great de László produced; for accuracy's sake, and because it's a wonderful painting.

THIS

PLUS THIS

EQUALS THIS