The portrait genre has been one of the most significant in royal and aristocratic homes since the Renaissance. This thesis concerns the portrait collection in the Baroque castle Skokloster, built by the successful count and field marshal Carl Gustaf Wrangel in the 1600s with its unique architecture. The castle houses a significant collection of portrait paintings, some of which date back to the time of its construction, and which constitute a majority of the total number of artworks in the collection. The Swedish noble family, as part of Early Modern court culture, saw their creation of an art collection as vital for fashioning a sense of lineage, respectability, and exercise of power. The thesis asks questions like how the portraits can be understood in relation to the architecture and decorum of the rooms, and how the Swedish Baroque culture and aesthetics are staged in the portraits in relation to court culture and the art collection as a whole. The portrait as a medium is a way for us to remember a deceased historical person but at the same time a way for the sitter to idealize and flatter themselves into an image they desire. Hence a portrait is a union between realism and ideal, documentation and fiction. The portrait has a performative power and acts on behalf of the real person which it depicts. Furthermore, the portrait can give us glimpses of a bygone era of court culture, art patrons, artists, Baroque fashion, court ballets, and festivities.

The dissertation re-examines a fragmentary and understudied group of nearly 150 portrait statues representing Hellenistic kings. The surviving portrait statuary comprises a small fraction of those originally produced for kings in marble, bronze, gilded bronze, and other materials during the Hellenistic period. The corpus of extant statuary presents many interpretive challenges, from fragmentary conditions to often uncertain provenance, and from unrecognizable physiognomies of rulers to unstandardized royal iconographies. Most previous scholarship was concerned with identifying kings in their portraits, unfortunately without much success. As a result, the portraits have received relatively little attention over the past few decades, despite robust and relevant scholarly advances related to Greek portraiture and Hellenistic kingship. While most studies have focused on identifying faces and interpreting portraits in thecontext of specific reigns, the present study collates the art historical, archaeological, and textual evidence for royal portraits’ forms, iconographies, and original placements to gain a fuller understanding of the corpus. Analysis of surviving royal statue bases, literary accounts, honorific decrees detailing royal portrait commissions, and royal portraits in other media (e.g., coins, seals, bronze figurines, mosaics, etc.) reveals that royal portrait statues were often more diverse, conspicuous, theatrical, and divinizing than portrait statues representing non-royal individuals. The study demonstrates the resonances between these portrait features and the marvelous bodily adornments, choreographed movements, and calculated performances of kings' real bodies in royal rituals and spectacles, ultimately revealing that like the staged appearances of kings, Hellenistic royal portrait statues were conceived as conspicuous material syntheses of royal actors and royal roles.

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Emma Hamilton (1765-1815) eut un impact considérable à un moment charnière de l’histoire et de l’art européens. Faisant preuve d’une énorme résilience, elle trouva un moyen efficace d’affirmer son agentivité et fut une source d’inspiration puissante pour des générations de femmes et d’artistes dans leur propre quête d’expression et de réalisation de soi. Cette thèse démontre qu’Emma tira sa puissance particulière de sa capacité à négocier des identités différentes et parfois même contradictoires – objet et sujet ; modèle et portraiturée ; artiste, muse et œuvre d’art ; épouse, maîtresse et prostituée ; roturière et aristocrate ; mondaine et ambassadrice : et interprète d’une myriade de caractères historiques, bibliques, littéraires et mythologiques, tant masculins que féminins. Épouse de l’ambassadeur anglais à Naples, favorite de la reine de Naples et amante de l’amiral Horatio Nelson, elle fut un agent sur la scène politique pendant l’époque révolutionnaire et napoléonienne. Dans son ascension sociale vertigineuse qui la mena de la plus abjecte misère aux plus hauts échelons de l’aristocratie anglaise, elle sut s’adapter, s’ajuster et se réinventer. Elle reçut et divertit d’innombrables écrivains, artistes, scientifiques, nobles, diplomates et membres de la royauté. Elle participa au développement et à la dissémination du néoclassicisme au moment même de son efflorescence. Elle créa ses Attitudes, une performance répondant au goût de son époque pour le classicisme, qui fut admirée et imitée à travers l’Europe et qui inspira des générations d’interprètes féminines. Elle apprit à danser la tarentelle et l’introduisit dans les salons aristocratiques. Elle influença un réseau de femmes s’étendant de Paris à Saint-Pétersbourg et incluant Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun, Germaine de Staël et Juliette Récamier. Modèle hors pair, elle inspira plusieurs artistes pour la production d’œuvres qu’ils reconnurent comme parmi leurs meilleures. Elle fut représentée par les plus grands artistes de son temps, dont Angelica Kauffman, Benjamin West, Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun, George Romney, James Gillray, Joseph Nollekens, Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Lawrence et Thomas Rowlandson. Elle bouscula, de façon répétée, les limites et mœurs sociales. Néanmoins, Emma ne tentait pas de présenter une identité cohérente, unifiée, polie. Au contraire, elle était un kaléidoscope de multiples « sois » qu’elle gardait actifs et en dialogue les uns avec les autres, réarrangeant continuellement ses facettes afin de pouvoir simultanément s’exprimer pleinement et présenter aux autres ce qu’ils voulaient voir. / Emma Hamilton (1765-1815) had a marked impact at a pivotal moment in European history and art. This dissertation shows that Emma drew her particular potency from her ability to negotiate these different and at times contradictory identities—object and subject; model and sitter; artist, muse, and work of art; wife, mistress, and prostitute; commoner and aristocrat; socialite and ambassadress; and performer of myriad historical, biblical, literary, and mythological male and female characters. Emma displayed astonishing resilience, found an effective way to assert her agency, and was a powerful inspiration for generations of artists and of women in their own search for expression and self-actualization. The wife of England’s ambassador to Naples, the favourite of the queen of Naples, and the lover of Admiral Horatio Nelson, she was an agent on the political stage during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic era. She adapted, adjusted, and reinvented herself in her dizzying rise from rags to riches. She entertained and beguiled countless writers, artists, scientists, aristocrats, politicians, and royalty. She participated in the dissemination of Neoclassicism in Europe at the very moment of its efflorescence. She created her Attitudes, a performance that tapped into her epoch’s taste for classicism, was admired and imitated throughout Europe, and inspired generations of female performers. She learnt to dance the tarantella and introduced it into aristocratic drawing rooms. She influenced an early nineteenth-century network of women that spanned Paris to St Petersburg and included Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun, Germaine de Staël, and Juliette Récamier. An unmatched model and sitter, she inspired artists to produce what they acknowledged to be some of their best work. She appeared in works produced by the major artists of her time, among whom Angelica Kauffman, Benjamin West, Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun, George Romney, James Gillray, Joseph Nollekens, Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Lawrence, and Thomas Rowlandson. And she repeatedly pushed against the limits of social mores. Nevertheless, Emma did not attempt to present a coherent, unified, polished identity. Instead, she was a kaleidoscope of different selves that she kept active and in dialogue with each other, constantly reconfiguring the pieces so that she could simultaneously express herself fully and present to others what they wanted to see.

Le 16e siècle est une époque de changement où la famille se restreint et devient une projection d’idéal, symbolisant aspirations dynastiques et prestige pour les familles vénitiennes. Parallèlement dans l’iconographie religieuse, la Sainte Famille s’impose comme motif iconographique autour d’une cellule familiale succincte constituée de Marie, de Joseph et de l’Enfant Jésus. La famille et la Sainte Famille deviennent des sujets de choix dans la peinture, et ce tout particulièrement dans la production artistique vénitienne. La valorisation visuelle de la femme est un point commun entre ces représentations, aspect plutôt surprenant si l’on pense à la société et la religion catholique qui sont éminemment patriarcales. Le présent travail s’intéresse à cette position féminine névralgique et au constat que l’on en établit, et s’appuie sur un corpus d’œuvres vénitiennes du 16e siècle. / The 16th century was a time of change where the family decreases and becomes an ideal projection, symbolizing the dynastic aspirations and prestige to the Venetian families. Meanwhile, in religious iconography the Holy Family stands out as ideal iconographic motif, around a brief family unit constituted by Mary, Joseph and Jesus. The family and the Holy Family became prime subject in painting, and especially in Venetian artistic production. The visual promotion of the women is common point between these representations, aspect rather surprising if we think of the society and the catholic religion, which are highly patriarchal. This work is interested in this feminine position and what can be deduct from it, and lean on a corpus of Venetian works of the 16th century.

Comment définir ces peintures ou rondes-bosses que sont les portraits japonais figurant des moines ? Par leur forme spécifique qui, issue d’un prototype continental qui n’a pas été remis en question, est demeurée stable à l’exception de brèves périodes. Cette constance s’explique par l’importance accordée à la Chine, l’usage de modèles iconographiques (zuzō) et le recours à une réplique qui n’est jamais dénigrée. Le portrait est de plus une image au bénéfice des sectes qui la produisent. En fournissant une représentation qui ne se dégrade pas, il est aussi la preuve d’un état de sainteté, voire de bouddhéité. Quant à la fonction de certificat des portraits Zen (chinzō), elle semble rare. Portrait de groupe, rouleaux illustrés (emaki) et littérature ont également décrit des personnages à leur façon, autorisant des comparaisons. Le portrait aurait pu inventer sa propre représentation ; il a préféré emprunter aux images sacrées : figurations de vénérés, maṇḍala et illustrations de jātaka. / How can one define these paintings and sculptures in the round that make up Japanese portraits of monks? Through their specific form that derives from a continental prototype which has never been reappraised and which remained stable except for short periods of time. Such a consistency results from a strong influence of China, and from the use of iconographic models (zuzō). Furthermore, copying a work of art has never been undervalued. Portraits are also images which benefit the sect that produces them. By providing an image or representation that never decays, they bear testimony to a monk's holiness, even buddhahood. Lastly, the Zen portraits (chinzō) are often seen as a kind of certification; however, this function seems quite rare. Group portraits, scrolls (emaki) and literature also describe people in their own way, allowing comparison with portraits. Portraiture could have followed its own path; it has preferred to borrow from holy images: deities, maṇḍala and jātaka illustrations.