!00 paintings an artist should know, featuring several weird Englishmen

36) Francois I of France by Jean Clouet 1480-1541
Probably from the Netherlands, Clouet ended up in the court of Francois I. Very little is known about him. The painting above is in the Louvre and attributed to Cluet. There is a large collection of drawings by Cluet and followers in the French National Library at Chantilly. His drawings are rather like Holbein's in their delicacy and clear linear delineation of both the features and the personality of his sitters. The drawing below is from the Minneapolis institute of arts.


37) Lady Hamilton as Circe by George Romney 1734-1802
Romney, a successful English portrait painter, married young and lived apart from his wife for his entire career. He did support her financially. He painted some sixty pictures of Lady Hamilton. He must have been very enamored with her. I have no idea what else he did with her, however when he was old and his health failed, he returned to his wife after an absence of some forty years. The forgiving woman nursed him for the two years before he died. I am guessing that she brought up Lady Hamilton every day.

38) The Orgy by William Hogarth 1697- 1764
Hogarth began his career as an engraver but moved on to create a series of paintings of a moralizing, cautionary type. The Harlots progress is one such, depicting the rapid dissolution of an attractive young country lass who discovers she is sitting on a gold mine.
Many of Hogarths paintings were reproduced as engravings and sold in great numbers. Below is Gin Lane, a depiction of the lives of those who are consumed by strong drink. It is one of a pair, the other showing Beer Street where evidently everyone is just fine.

Besides his series of social satire and comment he was a fine portrait painter and produced a number of masterpiece portraits. Below is Captain Thomas Coram.