Portrait poses

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I came across the portrait below of George Washington, and obviously thought of Napoléon with regard to his pose - hence this post.

Portrait of George Washington; painting by Charles Willson Peale, 1776

Charles Willson Peale, Self Portrait, 1822

Charles Willson Peale, 1741-1827 Peale was quite prolific as an artist. While he did portraits of scores of historic figures (such as James Varnum, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton), he is probably best known for his portraits of George Washington. The first time Washington ever sat for a portrait was with Peale in 1772, and there would be six other sittings; using these seven as models, Peale produced altogether close to 60 portraits of Washington. In January 2005, a full length portrait of "Washington at Princeton" from 1779 sold for $21.3 million dollars, setting a record for the highest price paid for an American portrait.

Portrait of a Gentleman; painting by Giuseppe Ghislandi c. 1740

Giuseppe Ghislandi, Self Portrait, 1732

Giuseppe Ghislandi, also known as Fra Galgario, 1655-1743 Italian painter from Bergamo. He started life as a friar of the order of Minims in Venice, 1675 – 88 . He then trained as an artist in the studio of Sebastiano Bombelli ( 1635 – 1719 ) in Venice c. 1689 – 1702 . After this he settled at Bergamo, living in the Convento del Galgario from which he derived his name. He specialized in portraiture, mostly of provincial society, sometimes painting in a relaxed and realistic style, but at others characterizing his subject with sardonic detachment, as is the case with the Gentleman with a Tricorn Hat (Milan, Poldi Pezzoli Mus.). He also painted fanciful heads as character studies and this genre was in demand from a wide range of patrons and collectors, including Prince Eugène of Savoy and Marshal Johann Matthias von der Schulenberg , of whom he also painted a portrait (Bertelli and Danios no. 9).

Portrait of Napoléon Bonabarte; painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1804

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Self Portrait, 1804

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, 1780 - 1867 A French Neoclassical painter. Although he considered himself to be a painter of history in the tradition of Nicolas Poussin and Jacques-Louis David, by the end of his life it was Ingres's portraits, both painted and drawn, that were recognized as his greatest legacy. A man profoundly respectful of the past, he assumed the role of a guardian of academic orthodoxy against the ascendant Romantic style represented by his nemesis Eugène Delacroix. His exemplars, he once explained, were "the great masters which flourished in that century of glorious memory when Raphael set the eternal and incontestable bounds of the sublime in art ... I am thus a conservator of good doctrine, and not an innovator." Nevertheless, modern opinion has tended to regard Ingres and the other Neoclassicists of his era as embodying the Romantic spirit of his time, while his expressive distortions of form and space make him an important precursor of modern art.

Portrait of David Garrick; Painting by Thomas Gainsborough, 1742

Thomas Gainsborough, Self Portrait, 1759

Thomas Gainsborough, 1727-1788 The only truly original landscape artist of the period was also one of its greatest portrait painters, Thomas Gainsborough. No other painter applied himself so successfully to both branches of art, though he said that he preferred landscape and only painted portraits for a living.