beside the easel

Portrait of Leonilla, Princess of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn, 1843 Born on 20 April, 1805 in the Black Forest region of Germany, Franz Xaver Winterhalter was an aristocratic portrait painter in Europe and Russia. Known for his sensual use of colors and adding gracefulness to his sitters, Winterhalter may not be a household name today but in his day was quite in demand. Critics from his own era sometimes dismissed his style as superficial and sentimental, a sort of Rococo artist with strong Italian Renaissance roots that painted an enormous amount of portraiture, but Winterhalter gave his clients what they wanted, which was elegance and grandeur without being formulaic. Considering the sheer amount of portraits he painted of aristocrats, including Queen Victoria herself, Winterhalter resisted the cliché that affected many British artists of the period who attempted to be Van Dyck or Reynolds but simply were not. In the Portrait of Leonilla above he graces this beautiful Russian Princ...