Italian Mannerist Painter, 1494-ca.1556 Italian painter and draughtsman. He was the leading painter in mid-16th-century Florence and one of the most original and extraordinary of Mannerist artists. His eccentric personality, solitary and slow working habits and capricious attitude towards his patrons are described by Vasari; his own diary, which covers the years 1554-6, further reveals a character with neurotic and secretive aspects. Pontormo enjoyed the protection of the Medici family throughout his career but, unlike Agnolo Bronzino and Giorgio Vasari, did not become court painter. His subjective portrait style did not lend itself to the state portrait. He produced few mythological works and after 1540 devoted himself almost exclusively to religious subjects. His drawings, mainly figure studies in red and black chalk, are among the highest expressions of the great Florentine tradition of draughtsmanship; close to 400 survive, forming arguably the most important body of drawings by a Mannerist painter.   Related Paintings of Pontormo :. | The three goddesses | Pharaoh Pardons the Butler and Ordes the Execution of the Baker | Leda and the Swan | John envoy | Annen-Altar, Madonna mit Hl. Anna, links |
Related Artists:
Lavinia Fontana
Italian Painter, 1552-1614 Daughter of Prospero Fontana. She was trained by her father and followed his Mannerist style. Her first recorded works, which date from 1575, were small paintings for private devotion, such as the Holy Family (Dresden, Gemeldegal.). By 1577 she had become established as a portrait painter in Bologna. Works of this date include the Self-portrait at the Harpsichord (Rome, Gal. Accad. S Luca) and the portrait of Senator Orsini (Bordeaux, Mus. B.-A.). Her portrait style reflects the formality of central Italian models as well as the naturalistic tendencies of the north Italian tradition. The elegantly costumed Orsini is shown seated at a table, with a suite of rooms opening behind him, a setting recalling such Florentine portraits of the 1530s as Agnolo Bronzino's Bartolommeo Panciatichi (Florence, Uffizi). Lavinia used a similar setting for other portraits, including the Gozzadini Family (1584; Bologna, Pin. N.). Female sitters are also shown in elaborate dress, with particular attention paid to details of embroidery and jewels, and they are often accompanied by small dogs
Richard Westall
English Painter, 1765-1836 was an English painter. Westall was the more successful of two half-brothers (both sons of a Benjamin Westall, from Norwich), who each became painters. His younger half-brother was William Westall (1781C1850), a much-travelled landscape painter. Born on 2 January 1765 in Reepham near Norwich (where he was baptised at All Saints on 13 January in the same year) Richard Westall moved to London after the death of his mother and the bankruptcy of his father in 1772. He was apprenticed to a heraldic silver engraver in 1779 before studying at the Royal Academy School of Art from 10 December 1785. He exhibited at the Academy regularly between 1784 and 1836, became an Associate in November 1792 and was elected an Academician on 10 February 1794. From 1790 to 1795 he shared a house with Thomas Lawrence (later Sir), the future Royal Academy president, at 57 Greek Street, on the corner of Soho Square, each of the artists placing their name on one of the entrances. His works C many in water-colour - caused great interest in the late years of the 18th century when he was considered by his chief patron Richard Payne Knight as an outstanding artist of the picturesque. He painted works in a neo-classical style for John Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery and for Henry Fuseli's Milton Gallery. His painting of John Milton and his daughters hangs in Sir John Soane's Museum in London. A number of scenes in which Westall depicts events in the life of Horatio Nelson are at the Maritime Museum. Westall was a prolific illustrator of books of poets and writers including Sir Walter Scott and Oliver Goldsmith, Byron - who greatly admired his work, stating that "the brush has beat the poetry". He also illustrated editions of the Bible,
Delfim da Camara
painted Portrait of Dom Pedro II in 1875