#royal portraits

Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, Self-Portrait with Two Pupils, Marie Gabrielle Capet (1761–1818) and Marie Marguerite Carreaux de Rosemond (died 1788), 1785, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA. Detail. Women Artists

Adélaïde Labille-Guiard: Female Icon of 18th-Century Paris

Adélaïde Labille-Guiard was one of the most prominent women artists of the end of the 18th century in Paris. Despite misogynistic policies for...

Jimena Escoto 21 March 2024

European Art

Queen Elizabeth I – Portraits of the Last Tudor

Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) was the only surviving child of King Henry VIII of England and his second wife Anne Boleyn. Being a girl was hard...

Sarah Mills 20 March 2024

Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Self Portrait in a Straw Hat, 1782, National Gallery, London, UK. Detail. Artist Stories

Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun Travels Across Europe

Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun was a French portrait painter working in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. While her subject matter and color palette...

Natalia Iacobelli 11 March 2024

Long Read

Badass Queens from Classical History

A rollicking adventure through the lives of great leaders and queens from ancient times. Famous female leaders are a fascinating bunch. Here at...

Candy Bedworth, Guest Profile 8 March 2024

Rococo

How to Look Fabulous: Rococo Women Beauty Guide

How to look fabulous? That is the question! Let’s refer to the most splendid and opulent period of history: the 18th century. The Enlightenment era...

Kateryna Martynova 7 March 2024

Franz Xaver Winterhalter, Empress Elisabeth of Austria (detail), 1865. Oil on canvas. The Hofburg Palace, Vienna, Austria. Herstory

Empress Sisi: What Art Doesn’t Show Us

Elizabeth of Austria, more commonly known as Sisi, was Empress of the Austrian-Habsburg Empire from 1854 until 1898. Captivating paintings and...

Errika Gerakiti 4 March 2024

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Queen Mother Idia of Benin

Africa is a beautiful continent filled with sweeping landscapes and mighty rivers. Its history is filled with great kingdoms and large empires. Its...

James W Singer 3 March 2024

History

Joanna of Castile: Story of a Misunderstood Queen in Portraits

Joanna of Castile, also known as Joanna the Mad, was never expected to inherit the throne of Castile and Aragon in the 16th century. Due to her...

Anna Ingram 22 February 2024

Renaissance

Rebelious Princess – Ana de Mendoza y de la Cerda, Princess of Éboli

“Who is this beauty with an eyepatch?” you may ask. Is she some sort of pirate queen? No, but you are not far from the truth. Ana de Mendoza de...

Joanna Kaszubowska 22 February 2024

Herstory

Painting a Reputation: The Portrait of Empress Dowager Cixi by Katharine Augusta Carl

Art and politics have been closely intertwined throughout global history. This article studies the case of The Empress Dowager Cixi of China by...

Iolanda Munck 29 January 2024

Fashion

Family Treasures – World’s Most Beautiful Tiaras

We all have family treasures, those mementos that matter to us so much because of their sentimental value and memories associated with them. Now,...

Joanna Kaszubowska 30 December 2023

Ancient Egypt

Nefertiti as a Beauty Icon

Nefertiti is a beauty icon and one of the most powerful women who has inspired us throughout centuries. Responding to the rhythms of the age, she...

Marina Kochetkova 25 December 2023