New book | The Art of Professing in Bourbon Mexico: Crowned-Nun Portraits and Reform in the Convent

James M. Córdova, The Art of Professing in Bourbon Mexico: Crowned-Nun Portraits and Reform in the Convent (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014), ISBN: 978-0-292-75315-0 (Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Latin American and Caribbean Arts and Culture publication initiative).

A new book by James M. Córdova, Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Colorado at Boulder, explores the tradition of the ‘crowned nun’ portrait in Spain’s American colonies during the eighteenth century.

The Franklins, Fame and Phrenology | Alison Inglis

Fig. 1: Thomas Phillips, Portrait of Sir John Franklin, 1828. Oil on canvas,768 mm x 514 mm. National Portrait Gallery, London. Bequeathed by Lady Franklin’s niece, Miss Sophia Cracroft, 1892. NPG 903.

Sir John Franklin is best known in Australia for his role in this country’s colonial history, in particular his attempts to foster education and culture in Van Diemen’s Land while Lieutenant-Governor of that distant imperial outpost between 1837 and 1843.[1]

New book | Placing Faces: The portrait and the English country house in the long eighteenth century

A new book from Manchester University Press explores the relationship between English country houses and the portraits that adorn their walls. Edited by Gill Perry, Kate Retford and Jordan Vibert, the book contains essays by Desmond Shawe Taylor, Harriet Guest, Emma Barker, Susie West, Alison Yarrington and Ruth Kenny.

Welcome to the Melbourne Portrait Group

The Melbourne Portrait Group is a Melbourne-based initiative emerging from the ARC-funded research project Humankind: Transforming identity in Australian and British portraits, 1700-1900 in the National Gallery of Victoria. Its purpose is to promote news and commentary on the subject of portraiture and to provide a network for portraiture scholars, including researchers, curators, museum professionals and conservators. Although based in Melbourne, the Melbourne Portrait Group aims to connect portrait specialists across Australia and further afield.

Joseph Wright of Derby’s self-portrait in the NGV | Vivien Gaston

Joseph Wright of Derby, Self-portrait (1765-68). Oil on canvas on canvas, 69.8 x 58 cm (image) 70.2 x 58.7 cm (canvas). National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Gift of Alina Cade in memory of her husband Joseph Wright Cade, 2009.

In late 2009 curator Laurie Benson answered a telephone call informing him of two portraits in a Melbourne home that might be of interest to the National Gallery of Victoria. After undertaking preliminary research, Benson set off for the caller’s home with great curiosity. On arrival he found, hanging above the fireplace in its original frame, a long-lost self-portrait by one of Britain’s greatest artists, Joseph Wright of Derby.