Royal Portraits
A number of central works of International Gothic work are votive portraits of monarchs with a sacred figure – in some cases being received into Heaven by them, as with a miniature of Jean, Duc de Berry, and some of his relatives, being welcomed by Saint Peter in the Grandes Heures du Duc de Berry. From this period come the earliest surviving panel portraits of monarchs, and royal manuscripts show a greatly increased number of realistic portraits of the monarch who commissioned them.
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Master Theoderic, Emperor Charles IV (above left) and his son (right) before the Virgin, Bohemia. (detail)
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Jean de Vaudetar, chamberlain of king Charles V of France, presents his gift of a manuscript to the King, 1372.
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The Wilton Diptych 1395–99. King Richard II of England kneels. (left side of the diptych)
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The Wilton Diptych, painted in England by a French or English artist. (right side)
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Famous quotes containing the words royal and/or portraits:
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Satan exalted sat, by merit raised
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—John Milton (1608–1674)
“It is not merely the likeness which is precious ... but the association and the sense of nearness involved in the thing ... the fact of the very shadow of the person lying there fixed forever! It is the very sanctification of portraits I think—and it is not at all monstrous in me to say ... that I would rather have such a memorial of one I dearly loved, than the noblest Artist’s work ever produced.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)