MASTERS OF THE "SPEAKING LIKENESS" with Eugene Barilo Von Reisberg

During the first half of the 19th century, British portrait painters continued celebrating the grandeur of the British monarchy and the elegance of the court beauties. At the same time, their counterparts in France and Spain, during the turbulent era of wars, revolutions, and political upheavals, were forced to adapt their brush to a quickly changing social environment.

The confluence of two major art movements of the era, Neoclassicism and Romanticism, allowed them to capture these changes in visually exciting and innovative ways. Jacques Louis David, Elisabeth Vigée Lebrun, François Gérard, J A D Ingres, Thomas Lawrence, William Beechey, and Francisco Goya are just some of the artists to be discussed in this lecture.

EUGENE BARILO VON REISBERG is a writer, researcher, and art consultant. He is an internationally acknowledged authority on Franz Xaver Winterhalter, the 19th century elite portrait specialist, and he is currently completing a doctoral thesis on the artist at the University of Melbourne.

François Gérard (1770-1837), Portrait of Louise-Antoinette, Duchesse de Montebello, with her Children, 1814, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, purchased with funds provided by the Brown Foundation Accessions Endowment Fund and the Alice Pratt Brown Museum Fund