1755-1828 Gilbert Stuart was born in North Kingston, R.I., on Dec. 3, 1755. At the age of 13 or 14 he studied art with the Scottish painter Cosmo Alexander in Newport. With Alexander he made a tour of the South and a journey to Edinburgh, where Alexander died in 1772. For about a year Stuart remained, poverty-stricken, in Scotland, but finally, working as a sailor, he managed to get back to America. There he executed a few portraits in a hard limner fashion. With the Revolutionary War threatening, his family, who had Tory sympathies, fled to Nova Scotia, and Stuart sailed for London, where he remained from 1775 to 1787. For the first 4 or 5 years, Stuart served as the first assistant of American expatriate painter Benjamin West, who had rescued him from poverty. From the first, Stuart showed an interest only in portraiture and had no desire to go into the branch of history painting West practiced. After his apprenticeship, Stuart became London's leading portrait painter, next to Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough, whose style he emulated, as in a rare full-length portrait of William Grant of Congalton as The Skater (ca. 1782). For a while Stuart lived in splendor, but being a bad businessman and a profligate spender, he was in constant debt. He lived in Ireland from 1787 to 1792 and then returned to America to make a fortune,  Related Paintings of Gilbert Stuart :. | Portrait of Govenor John Brooks | John Adams | Thomas Jefferson | Der Schlittschuhlaufer | George Washington |
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Antonio Ciseri
(October 25, 1821 ?C March 8, 1891) was a Swiss painter of religious subjects. Ciseri was born in Ronco sopra Ascona in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland. In 1833 he moved with his father to Florence. He was admitted in 1834 to the Accademia di Belle Arti, where he trained under Niccola Benvenuti. In 1849, he began offering instruction to young painters, and eventually ran a private art school. Among his earliest students was Silvestro Lega.[1] Ciseri's religious paintings are Raphaelesque in their compositional outlines and their polished surfaces, but are nearly photographic in effect. He fulfilled many important commissions from churches in Italy and Switzerland. Ciseri also painted a significant number of portraits. He died in Florence on March 8, 1891.
Henry Scott Tuke
British Painter and photographer , 1858-1929 English painter. He entered the Slade School of Art, London, in 1875, under Alphonse Legros and Sir Edward Poynter. In 1877 he won a Slade scholarship and in 1880 travelled to Italy, where he made his first nude life drawings, an important revelation to him of light, colour and the human form. From 1881 to 1883 he was in Paris and met Jules Bastien-Lepage, who encouraged his studies en plein air.
Juan Pantoja de la Cruz
(Valladolid, 1553 - 26 October 1608, Madrid) Spanish painter, one of the best representatives of the Spanish school of court painters. He worked for Philip II and Philip III. The Museo del Prado contains examples of his severe portraiture style. Juan Pantoja de La Cruz was, born 1553 in Valladolid. Very little is known of his formative years as a painter. He was a pupil of the court painter Alonso Senchez Coello in Madrid and he must have assisted his master in complying with his duties as painter of the Spanish King, Philip II. Pantoja probably continued to work in his master studio after completing his training. He married in 1585 beginning to paint for the court around that time. After Sanchez Coello's death in 1588, Pantoja took over his master workshop and became court painter to Philip II of Spain. Pantoja kept working for the court and the nobility, painting portraits of Prince Philip, the future Philip III, in 1592 and 1594. Among his most well known works is the portrait of Philip II wearing a cape and hat all in black, painted around 1594 for the Escorial. This portrait is one of the best representations of the idea of Spanish majesty, based on the remoteness of the monarch. On Philip II's death in 1598, Philip III confirmed Pantoja's status as court painter. When the court settled in Valladolid in 1601, Pantoja moved to the new capital, remaining in this city, several years.