Portraits of Artists by Other Artists

As artists enjoy drawing and painting and often know other artists, there are quite a large number of portraits of artists by other artists throughout art history.  In this blog post several paintings where artists have created portraits of artists from the early 16th through the late 19th century will be looked at including several group portraits.

The Balcony, Edouard Manet, 1868-69, Musée d'Orsay

Berthe Morisot painted by Edouard Manet

The artist Berthe Morisot was the sister-in-law of Edouard Manet and was herself also a French Impressionist painter. Morisot was married to Manet's brother and the two of them were good friends.

Berthe Morisot is the woman seated on the left. The Bacony was inspired by Goya's Majas at the Balcony and was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1869.  Manet was often influenced by the Old Masters, but would depict figures in a modern way.  Here a family looks out at the city of Paris from their balcony.  When it was exhibited it received a lot of criticism, the figures were painted in the loose style of Impressionism and there is no narrative which was the opposite of critically acclaimed work at that time.

The other figures in the painting include the artist Jean Baptiste Antoine Guillemet standing in the center and violinist Fanny Claus on the right. There is also a forth figure in the background who is hard to see which is thought to be Manet’s young son Léon.  

Manet doesn't portray Morisot as a painter here, but uses her as a model, nothing lets the viewer know anything about her.  The Balcony was the first of several of Manet's paintings that Berthe Morisot would appear in. 

Vincent Van Gogh Painting Sunflowers by Paul Gauguin, 1888, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Vincent Van Gogh painted by Paul Gauguin

For several months in the fall of 1888 the artists Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin lived together in the town of Arles in the region of Provence in France.  They were friends and were both inspired by each other, though their personalities clashed and after three months Gauguin moved out.  However during the time they lived together in "The Yellow House" they painted side by side and also painted each other.

Van Gogh looked up to Gauguin, who he considered the more experienced painter.  Van Gogh was pleased when his friend created a painting of him painting.  Van Gogh painted many self-portraits and due to that we can recognize his features here, such as his signature beard and red hair.  We can also recognize that Van Gogh is painting the sunflowers that he would later be famous for.

In Gauguin's signature style he blurs the lines of inside and outside, of painting and still-life object, but what comes through in this is that while he may have had a difficult time living with Van Gogh, he respected him as an artist.

Raphael, Detail of School of Athens, 1509-10, Stanza della Segnatura, Papal Apartments, Vatican Museum

High Renaissance Artists painted by Raphael

Raphael painted this fresco in the papal apartments at the Vatican at the same time that Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel.  The pope at the time was Pope Julius II and he was having Raphael paint a series of large paintings in all the Papal apartments.

The fresco, now known as The School of Athens, shows a variety of famous figures in a classical setting.  Raphael used several of his contemporaries who were artists to represent famous ancient Greek scholars, philosophers, scientists and mathematicians. Among them are Leonardo da Vinci in the center, Michelangelo seated and a self portrait of Raphael at the far right. Doing this shows how the artists of the time were starting to be thought of as equals of the philosophers, scientists and mathematicians of Ancient Greece.  This was during the period now known as the Italian High Renaissance, the "rebirth" of classical ideas from the Greco-Roman civilizations first found in Athens.

Cartoon for the School of Athens, Raphael, c- 1508, charcoal, graphite, ink, and white heightening on paper, Pinoteca Ambrosiana, Milan

There is an interesting fact about The School of Athens fresco which can be best illustrated  by comparing it to Raphael's preparatory cartoon shown above.  Two of the most famous figures in the work are Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, but Raphael didn't think much of Michelangelo and didn't include him.  However he was working on his frescos in the Papal Apartments at the same time that Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling.  When Michelangelo unveiled the first half of the Sistine Chapel Raphael realized he needed to add him into the work.  As it was a fresco he couldn't just be painted in, Raphael first had to chip part of the work off the wall and then rework the painting to add him.  Compare the cartoon with the detail of the fresco, Michelangelo is seated below Leonardo wearing a purple robe.

Bernardino Campi Painting Sofonisba Anguissola, Sofonisba Anguissola, 1550's,

Bernardino Campi painted by Sofonisba Anguissola

This is a unique variant on a self-portrait.  This painting both showed Sofonisba Anguissola’s own self-portrait and showed the fact that a well-known artist had painted her.  This was Bernardino Campi, the artist with whom she studied for many years in Cremona, Italy. 

This painting was extremely clever as it wasn't presented as a straight self-portrait.  The artist even convincingly uses two painting styles to differentiate a person from a painted person.  Sofonisba Anguissola was one of the first successful women painters in the Italian Renaissance.

Sofonisba Anguissola by Anthony Van Dyck, 1624

Sofonisba Anguissola painted by Anthony Van Dyck 

Van Dyck was a well known and highly successful Flemish Portrait Painter who studied with Peter Paul Rubens in the 17th century.  After studying with Rubens, Van Dyck traveled through Europe and during his studies met and learned from Sofonisba Anguissola.  She painted her own portrait numerous times throughout her life.

This was painted when the artist was in her early 90's.  Compare Van Dyck's portrait of Anguissola with her earlier self-portrait painted some seventy years earlier.

Rembrandt as a Shepherd, Govert Flinck, c-1636, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Rembrandt Harmenszoonz van Rijn painted by Govert Flinck

This portrait of Rembrandt was painted by one of his students, Govert Flinck, while he was studying with him.  Here he uses props and costume to dress his master up as a shepherd and paints him in the very style that Rembrandt was becoming famous for.  Due to the fact that Rembrandt painted so many self-portraits, the figure is instantly recognizable as him.

Rembrandt ran a workshop and through his career taught many students, this was early in Rembrandt's career when he was about 30 years old and Flinck was about 21.  Both had successful painting careers during the 17th century in the period known as the Dutch Baroque.

Hubert Robert painted by  Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun , 1788, Louvre, Paris

Hubert Robert painted by Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun 

Robert and Le Brun knew each other, both painted for the royal family in France.  Hubert Robert lived from 1733-1808 and was 55 when this was painted. Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842) was around 33 years old when she painted this.  Robert was a well established Neoclassical painter who painted architectural landscapes of Rome and France, some real and some imagined "caprices."

Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun is best remembered for her portraits of Marie-Antoinette, but during her long and prosperous painting career she painted over 600 portraits.

The Staircase Group, Charles Wilson Peale, 1795, Philadelphia Museum of Art

Raphaelle Peale and Titian Ramsay Peale I painted by Charles Wilson Peale

Charles Wilson Peale painted this portrait of his two sons, also painters, Raphaelle Peale (1774-1825) and Titian Ramsay Peale I (1780-98).  In this work the boys were aged about 21 and 15 years old.  The Peale family was well known for being artistic, Raphaelle and Titian were both painters along with their brother Rembrandt (and also later their younger brother Titian) and all were themselves named after famous artists.  

In fact several of Peale's ten children were named after artists including Rubens, Angelica Kauffman, Sophonisba Angusciola and Titian  Ramsay (not to be confused with Titian Ramsay I who died the year before he was born).  As his sons were also artists Peale didn't just create a life size trompe l'oeil painting, but made certain to include his older son Raphaelle (shown on the lower step) holding brushes, a palette and a maulstick.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art website gives us some background on this work-

"On an unusually large canvas, he made one of his rare full-length portraits, showing two of his sons on an enclosed spiral staircase. Its high degree of detail and finish shows that the painting was clearly intended to be a trompe l'oeil "deception," an effect that Peale never attempted elsewhere. To enhance the illusion, he installed the painting within a doorframe in his studio, with a real step in front. Rembrandt Peale, another son, recalled that his father's friend George Washington, misled by Peale's artifice, tipped his hat and greeted the two young men as he walked by."

Darrel Sewell, from Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections(1995), p. 267.

Homage to Delacroix, Henri Fantin-Latour, 1864, Musee D'Orsay, Paris

Group Artist Portrait painted by Henri Fantin-Latour

In 1863 for the first time an exhibit was created in Paris from the artwork which was rejected by the jurors of the Salon of the French Academy.  This became known as the “Salon des Refuses” and included paintings by Eduoard Manet and James Abbott McNeil Whistler.

Henri Fantin-Latour, whose work was also rejected from the main Salon, painted the above group portrait in 1864 as a reaction to the idea of the Salon des Refuses and narrow restrictions of the Salon jurors. This was an homage to the Romantic painter Delacroix who died shortly after the Salon opened.  

The artists in the portrait were all fans of Delacroix's style and several were artists whose work had been featured in the Salon des Refusés.  Included in the portrait was a self-portrait (in white), a framed portrait of Delacroix, Manet, Whistler and Charles Baudelaire as well as other painters and writers.

Mary Cassatt Holding the Cards by Edgar Degas, c-1880-84
Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery



Mary Cassatt painted by Edgar Degas

French Impressionist painter Edgar Degas and American Impressionist Mary Cassatt from Philadelphia became friends when Cassatt moved to Paris to paint.  Cassatt attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art from 1861-65 and when she finished she moved to Paris in 1866 to learn from French painters and start a professional painting career.

After being in Paris for several years she was introduced to Degas, whose work she admired.  He mentored Cassatt and introduced her to impressionist techniques, pastel and printmaking.  He highly respected her as a fellow artist and felt she was the most like minded artist he had met.  She then began to exhibit her work with the Impressionists.

Degas is perhaps best known for his paintings and pastels of ballet dancers, but he also painted other scenes of contemporary life in Paris including this casual portrait of his friend as they played a game of cards.

Hip, Hip, Hurrah!, Peder Severin Krøyer , 1887-88,
Gothenburg Museum of Art

Skagen Painters painted by Peder Severin Krøyer

The Skagen painters were a group of late 19th century Danish artists who met regularly and often spent their summers at the beach town of Skagen.  When they got together they went and painted together, they painted each other, they critiqued each other's work regularly, had discussions about art and socialized daily.  The unofficial leader of the group was the gregarious Peder Severin Krøyer , who lived in Copenhagen most of the year where he taught painting, and in Skagen during the summer.

His painting Hip, Hip, Hurrah!, was inspired by a group dinner and toast made during one of those summers to celebrate their success.  The painting took him about four years, the little girl was a baby when he started the work.  He based this on a photograph that was taken at a dinner party, but he didn't want to create the painting from a photograph and it was difficult to get all his friends to come and model for the painting.

Sitting at the head of the table with her back to the is Martha Johansen, who was the artist's girlfriend when he began the painting.  The others starting from the left are: Viggo Johansen, Christian Krohg, Krøyer, Degn Brøndum (in the hat), Michael Ancher, Oscar Björck,Thorvald Niss, Helene Christiansen (in the dark striped dress), Anna Ancher (in white), and Michael and Anna's daughter Helga Ancher.


This blog only discussed portraits that are paintings, there are also many drawings, sculpture and photographs that could be shown. What other interesting portraits of artists by artists could be added to this discussion?