Early examples of portraiture Early examples of portraiture. Point out the hairstyles and the clothing. However, the person looks more like a painting than a photograph—painters weren’t yet interested in painting people how they really looked. The rich people who were paying for their portraits to be painted wanted to look beautiful—better than they did in person. So the painters painted an ideal instead of what it looked like in real life.

John Singleton Copley (painter)—still very stylized—doesn’t look like you are looking at a real person. But the fabric and clothing are wonderfully detailed. How would you go about painting lace? That’s very tricky. Or satin that shines in the light like her skirt? American, 1738 - 1815 Anne Fairchild Bowler (Mrs. Metcalf Bowler), c. 1763 oil on canvas The deep blue of the sitter’s silk dress befited the restrained tastes of colonial America; British women preferred brighter colors. Anne Fairchild (1730-1803) wed the owner of a country estate in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. The floral garland in Mrs. Bowler’s hands, besides being a standard symbol of beauty, may refer to her husband’s wealth; he possessed one of the very few greenhouses in the colonies.

John Singleton Copley (painter) American, 1738 - 1815 Epes Sargent, c John Singleton Copley (painter) American, 1738 - 1815 Epes Sargent, c. 1760 oil on canvas Copley's art matured quickly, as evidenced in this forthright portrayal of Epes Sargent (1690-1762). As proprietor of almost half the land in Gloucester, Massachusetts, the sitter confidently sticks one hand in a pocket and leans on a sturdy column base that forms a traditional emblem of Fortitude. Copley candidly noted such factual details as the mole under Sargent’s left eye and the powder fallen onto his shoulder from his wig.

Thomas Jefferson

John Adams, by Gilbert Stuart “Speaking generally, no penance is like having one's picture done. You must sit in a constrained and unnatural position, which is a trial to the temper. But I should like to sit to Stuart from the first of January to the last of December, for he lets me do just what I please, and keeps me constantly amused by his conversation.” — John Adams[31]

Paul Revere, by Gilbert Stuart

Look at the fine details Look at the fine details. The texture of the skin where he has shaved his jaw. The baggyness under his eye and near his nose.

Even more detail on the eye—Stuart was looking to reproduce real life.

Can you guess who this is? George Washington by Gilbert Stuart

Another celebrated image of Washington is the Lansdowne portrait, a large portrait with one version hanging in the East Room of the White House. During the burning of Washington by British troops in the War of 1812, this painting was saved through the intervention of First Lady Dolley Madison and Paul Jennings,

This is the most famous portrait of Washington, known as the Athenaeum.

Stuart created about 130 reproductions of this version of the painting, known as the Athenaeum. But the original was never finished. Nevertheless, it is this painting of Washington that was used to create the image on the one dollar bill.

Miniature portraits, so the likeness of a loved one could be carried around. Often as a necklace, sometimes on a watch chain like a pocket watch.

 Indeed, most of the era's finest portraitists in oil undertook miniature painting or hired an apprentice to do so. Gilbert Stuart may have popularized this mode of commerce when he arrived in New York in 1793 with the Irish miniature painter Walter Robertson. They took sittings together for patrons eager for a full-scale oil portrait, from Stuart, and a matching miniature from Robertson   But as photographic methods became more popular and accessible, miniature painting became a lost art. As the former Metropolitan Museum scholar Harry Wehle put it in 1927, "The miniature in the presence of the photograph was like a bird before a snake; it was fascinated—even to the fatal point of imitation—then it was swallowed."