Rita Angus
(1908 - 1970)

Rita Angus known as Rita Cook early in her career, was a New Zealand painter who, alongside Colin McCahon and Toss Woollaston, is regarded as one of the leading figures in twentieth-century New Zealand art. She worked primarily in oil and watercolour, and became known for her portraits and landscapes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rita_Angus

Portrait of Betty Curnow
1942
Oil on canvas
64,7 x 77,5 cm
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland, New Zealand
https://www.aucklandartgallery.com/explore-art-and-ideas/artwork/3721/portrait-of-betty-curnow

Rita Angus’s compelling Portrait of Betty Curnow resulted from numerous preparatory sittings and discussions about portraiture. The two women collaborated by selecting the objects and costume which would best depict Curnow, her family life and her history. The items surrounding Curnow are imbued with personal symbolism. She is close to her family, seated on her grandmother’s chair before her father’s portrait. Her husband poet Allen Curnow’s presence is apparent through his many books. She holds her son Wystan’s trousers, which she was mending. A watercolour by Angus, which was a gift to the family, leans on the shelf. It refers to Curnow’s Canterbury childhood. Both the print of Jan Brueghel’s harvest scene and the repeating ovoid shapes allude to fertility. This portrait’s charisma has made it an emblem of New Zealand painting.

Rogier van der Weyden
(1399 - 1464)

Rogier van der Weyden was an early Netherlandish painter whose surviving works consist mainly of religious triptychs, altarpieces, and commissioned single and diptych portraits. He was highly successful in his lifetime; his paintings were exported to Italy and Spain, and he received commissions from, amongst others, Philip the Good, Netherlandish nobility, and foreign princes. By the latter half of the 15th century, he had eclipsed Jan van Eyck in popularity. However his fame lasted only until the 17th century, and largely due to changing taste, he was almost totally forgotten by the mid-18th century. His reputation was slowly rebuilt during the 200 years that followed; today he is known, with Robert Campin and van Eyck, as the third (by birth date) of the three great Early Flemish artists (Vlaamse Primitieven or "Flemish Primitives"), and widely as the most influential Northern painter of the 15th century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogier_van_der_Weyden

Portrait of a Young Woman (or Lady Wearing a Gauze Headdress)
1435 - 1440
Oil on oak wood
47 x 32 cm
Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin

The painting is composed through a mix of horizontal and vertical lines. The verticals of her head-dress blend into the lines of her shoulders and chest, while the horizontal folds of the veil are set against the line formed by her upper and lower lips. Given the individuality of her features, Rogier was obviously working from a life study of an actual person. Yet there are elements of abstraction in the image. The model is likely a member of the middle class, given her relatively plain dress, matronly features and accentuated breasts. It is widely believed that she was modeled on the artist's wife, Elisabeth Goffaert, though this has not been proven. The portrait is similar to other female portraits by Rogier and Robert Campin. In fact, the similarity between Rogier's and Campin's female portraits is so strong that they were sometimes mis-attributed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_a_Woman_(van_der_Weyden)

 Amedeo Modigliani
(1884 - 1920)

Amedeo Clemente Modigliani was an Italian painter and sculptor of the École de Paris who worked mainly in France. He is known for portraits and nudes in a modern style characterized by a surreal elongation of faces, necks, and figures — works that were not received well during his lifetime, but later became much sought-after. Modigliani spent his youth in Italy, where he studied the art of antiquity and the Renaissance. In 1906, he moved to Paris, where he came into contact with such artists as Pablo Picasso and Constantin Brâncuși. By 1912, Modigliani was exhibiting highly stylized sculptures with Cubists of the Section d'Or group at the Salon d'Automne.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amedeo_Modigliani

Jeanne Hébuterne with Hat and Necklace
1917
Oil on canvas
67 x 51,5 cm
Private collection

Modigliani met Jeanne Hébuterne, a 19-year-old art student, in the spring of 1917 through the Russian sculptor Chana Orloff. Soon Modigliani ended his relationship with the English poet and art critic Beatrice Hastings and a short time later Hébuterne and Modigliani moved together into a studio on the Rue de la Grande Chaumière. Jeanne began to pose for him and became a principal subject for Modigliani's art. Modigliani depicted Jeanne Hébuterne in more than twenty works but never in nude. He transformed Hébuterne into an idyllic symbol of a modern woman.

Hendrick Goltzius
(1558 - 1617)

 

Hendrick Goltzius, or Hendrik, was a German-born Dutch printmaker, draftsman, and painter. He was the leading Dutch engraver of the early Baroque period, or Northern Mannerism, lauded for his sophisticated technique, technical mastership and "exuberance" of his compositions. According to A. Hyatt Mayor, Goltzius "was the last professional engraver who drew with the authority of a good painter and the last who invented many pictures for others to copy". In the middle of his life he also began to produce paintings. 

 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrick_Goltzius

Portrait of the Haarlem shell collector Jan Govertsen van der Aer
1603
Oil on canvas
82,7 x 107,5 cm
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
https://www.boijmans.nl/en/collection/artworks/4553/portrait-of-the-haarlem-shell-collector-jan-govertsen-van-der-aer

The famous Haarlem based painter and engraver Hendrick Goltzius has painted an informal portrait of his friend, the textile merchant Jan Govertsen van der Aer. The proud merchant is dressed in a black tunic with a simple open collar. On his lap is his valuable collection of shells.