The Power of Lace by Gil Dye
Download Gil Dye’s introduction to the history of lace making, using historic portraits and surviving examples. The Power of Lace by Gil Dye
Research Papers: 'Portraiture & Biography'
‘Portraits and Lace’ by Gil Dye
Over the centuries portraits have been designed to impress; making statements about power, wealth and status. Whenever lace was highly valued it featured strongly in these portraits and this is certainly the case during the period 1540-1640, which is of special interest to me in my study of early bobbin lace. In later portraits skilled […]
New research on rare clay portrait figure by Chitqua
Paper by Pat Hardy, Curator of Paintings, Prints and Drawings, Museum of London. January 2013. This rare and engaging figure of Thomas Todd (Fig. 1) a London merchant, is one of the few works to have survived intact which can be attributed to the Chinese artist Chitqua or Tan-Che-Qua (c.1730- c.1796). It was recently acquired […]
Podcasts from Gresham College
Portrait-relevant lectures available from the Gresham College website include: The Faces of a King: New research on portraits of Henry VIII delivered 1 Oct 2009 by Dr Tarnya Cooper, National Portrait Gallery. The face of Charles Dickens - portraits of the great author delivered 24 November 2005 by Andrew Xavier, The Charles Dickens Museum. Satire, […]
Thomas Gainsborough’s ‘Lost’ Portrait of Auguste Vestris by Martin Postle
The subject of this paper is a portrait of the celebrated eighteenth-century dancer, Auguste Vestris, acquired by Tate in 1955, when it was attributed to Gainsborough Dupont, nephew of Thomas Gainsborough. The paper argues that the portrait is in fact by Gainsborough himself and, through a discussion of the context in which it was made, […]
Sir Anthony Van Dyck’s Portraits of Sir William and Lady Killigrew, 1638 by Karen Hearn
This paper discusses the painting of the courtier and writer Sir William Killigrew and the companion portrait of his wife Mary Hill, Lady Killigrew, both painted in 1638, by Sir Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641). The pair were acquired by Tate in 2002 and 2003 from two entirely different sources. Tate Papers Issue 1 (2004)
Men in Lace: The Fashionable Swagger. The 18th-century nostalgia for ornate ‘Vandyke’ dress by Oliver Garnett
A look at the fashion among male sitters in the eighteenth century. See National Trust’s online Arts, Buildings, Collections Bulletin July 2010.
