18th century blog

Mrs. Alexander Hamilton by Ralph Earl, 1787.

Here’s a great blog I just came across, History of American Women – 18th Century. Lots of portraits of and information about women in 18th century America.

Portrait of Mrs James Denham by Sir Thomas Lawrence, 1789.

Here’s a great resource for 18th century portraits. Historical Portraits is a database of British historical portraiture and there are some wonderful 18th century examples among them. There’s not a huge amount but the photos are generally great and there was a surprisingly large amount of portraits I hadn’t even seen before!

Antoine Pesne with his daughters, 1754.

Antoine Pesne was a French rococo portrait artist who lived between 1683 and 1757.

Antoine Pesne on Wikipedia, and on Swedish Wikipedia.

Antoine Pesne on Encyclopedia Britannica.

Antoine Pesne on Art Directory.

See more of Pesne’s paintings after the cut.

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Jean-Laurent Mosnier, Portrait of a lady, 1791.

Here’s another online art database you can search by time period, the Web Gallery of Art. The easiest way to find the 18th century art is to go to the list of artists and choose period or time-line.

On the website of the Finnish national gallery you can search artworks by time period (just click “artworks”), and there are lots of 18th century ones.

Self portrait.

Pehr Hilleström was a Swedish 18th century painter who often painted everyday scenes with great attention to detail.

Pehr Hilleström on Historiesajten. In Swedish.

Pehr Hilleström at Konstnärslexikonet Amanda. Also in Swedish.

Some Hilleström paintings after the cut.

Edit: Updated this post with two more paintings.

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Sofia Vladimirovna Panina, 1791.

I don’t know anything about Jean-Louis Voille except that he appears to be French and seems to have painted mainly Russians. His paintings are lovely though, and you can see more after the cut.

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Here’s another great database to check out. Joconde is a catalogue of French museum collections. Go to the advanced search and write 18e siècle in the “Période/Datation” box and you’ll get all the 18th century stuff. I found lots of great paintings, objects and clothes.

Une Collection Francaise is a blog containing “a collection of French miniature portraits owned by a French collector who wishes to share them with art lovers”, and most of them are 18th century. Click the picture of Lamballe to go there.

John Wilkes and his daughter, 1779.

German painter Johann Zoffany on Wikipedia.

More paintings after the cut.

Edit: Updated this post with one more painting.

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Lavinia Spencer by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Probably 1780s.

In keeping with the season here are some pictures of 18th century ladies dressed for winter.

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Self portrait with two pupils, 1785.

French painter Adélaïde Labille-Guiard on Wikipedia.

The art of Adélaïde Labille-Guiard

More paintings after the cut.

Edit: Updated this post with more paintings and better quality pictures.

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The Swedish national museum will exhibit over 100 paintings by Alexander Roslin from September 27 2007 to January 13 2008. There will also be two lectures. Click the portrait to go to the exhibition website.

Self portrait, 1795.

French painter Louis-Léopold Boilly on Wikipedia. The wikipedia article is pretty much empty though, so here’s another link with a short biography.

More paintings after the cut.

Edit: Updated this post with more paintings and better quality pictures.

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