Huntington Library
Huntington Library: Art Wonders
Can portraits talk? What's in a landscape? How do artists make furniture? ArtWonders helps young learners ask and answer the kinds of questions that make observing art an interactive experience.
National Museums Liverpool
National Museums Liverpool: Portrait Detectives
In engaging mini-essays, art historians at the National Museums Liverpool dissect the art of the portrait. Through close examination of six paintings, students learn to interpret the sitter's mood and status and to read clues that convey...
Other
Artnatomy/artnatomia: Anatomical Facial Expression Learning Tool
A magnificent Flash interactive tool useful for teaching and learning about the anatomical foundation of facial expression. Expandable animated images overlay each other to show both the structure of the skull and the muscles employed...
Other
Art and Architecture: Four Paintings: Rubens: Family of Jan Brueghel the Elder
Description and analysis of Rubens's group portrail of the family of Jan Brueghel the Elder.
Other
National Portrait Gallery: Collections: Sitters a Z
This site from the official National Portrait Gallery of the United Kingdom is a resource to search the collection by typing in a subject's name or access the section on artists.
J. Paul Getty Trust
J. Paul Getty Museum: Jacques Louis David: Empire to Exile
The companion website of a major survey of the work of Jacques-Louis David exhibited at the J. Paul Getty Museum in February 2005. The exhibition focuses on the artist's career after the French Revolution, from the mid-1790s until his...
Other
Louvre Museum: A Closer Look at Louis Francois Bertin
Media-rich module examines a portrait of a nineteenth-century French newspaper magnate by Ingres. Accompanying commentaries and animations demonstrate Ingres's approach to portraiture and convey the work's historical and artistic...
Other
Louvre Museum: Mona Lisa: Portrait of Lisa Gherardini
Learn about the various actions that have been taken to preserve the "Mona Lisa," one of Leonardo's most famous portrait paintings. Explore compositional details, unfinished portions of the painting, and other interesting tidbits about...
Smithsonian Institution
National Portrait Gallery: Eye Contact: Modern American Portrait Drawings
Portraits in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery can be seen and understood with excellent gallery notes that also survey the history of portraiture in American art leading up to the modern period.
Other
New Britain Museum of American Art: Costumes
An interesting way to study the history of American portraiture, by focusing on the clothing of those who sat for their portraits.
Smithsonian Institution
The National Portrait Gallery
This is a great website of portraits of famous people. Includes pictures, biographical information, and general information on artists' techniques. Includes a "Hall of Presidents" and portraits of various celebrities and artists...
National Gallery of Art
National Gallery of Art: 18th Century French Portraiture
This is a "tour" of portrait paintings done by 18th Century French painters, Jean Simeon Chardin, Nicolas de Largilliere, Jean-Marc Nattier, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, and Jean-Antoine Houdon. There are ten portraits, each with an extensive...
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art: Art and Identity in British North American Colonies
Consider the English identity of American colonists by examining the sorts of imported goods and decorative arts Americans chose to purchase and display.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art: John Singleton Copley
This sample "exhibit" from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art offers a short biography of colonial painter and portrait artist John Singleton Copley. Includes links to six different paintings, each with an informative caption.
Other
National Portrait Gallery
The home on the web of Great Britain's National Portrait Gallery is a repository of the likenesses of famous British men and women. Portraits stretch back in time into the the sixteenth century and run right up to the present. Includes...
Other
Rijksmuseum: Rembrandt's "The Night Watch"
A full-featured exploration of Rembrandt's "The Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch," better known as "The Night Watch." Learn who is in the painting, the symbols in it, what makes "The Night Watch" innovative,...
Other
National Portrait Gallery: Web Quest: Painting Elizabeth I
Using portraits of Elizabeth I found in British museums as source material, learners investigate the art of portraiture by creating a new portrait of Queen Elizabeth that demonstrates knowledge of Tudor times and her reign.
Smithsonian Institution
National Portrait Gallery: A Brush With History
Exhibition of portraits of American heroes, statesmen, writers, artists, scientists, and historical figures draws on the paintings in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery to consider the story of America. View portraits from...
Smithsonian Institution
Nat'l Portrait Gallery: Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits
Biographical portraits of African Americans involved in the struggle for civil rights and equality, from the time of Frederick Douglass forward. Learn about the contributions of Edmonia Lewis, Sojourner Truth, Edward Bannister, Octavius...
Smithsonian Institution
National Portrait Gallery: Inventing Marcel Duchamp:the Dynamics of Portraiture
An exhibition delving into the life and works of one of the leading Dada artists, Marcel Duchamp. Includes examples of his alter-ego portraits and videos of interviews with the artist and with experts discussing his art. [Videos are...
Smithsonian Institution
National Portrait Gallery: Presidents in Waiting
Exhibition of portraits of fourteen vice presidents who later became president tells the stories of their careers in pictures and words. Includes videos of taped interviews with four former vice presidents. [Exhibition opening: January...
Smithsonian Institution
National Portrait Gallery: Zaida Ben Yusuf: New York Portrait Photographer
Exhibit documents the life and work of early twentieth-century New York portrait photographer Zaida Ben-Yusuf, who broke with many of the conventions of portraiture and, thereby, attracted the attention of prominent artistic, literary,...
Smithsonian Institution
National Portrait Gallery: Mathew Brady's Portraits
Exhibition of photographic portraits taken by Civil War-era photographer Mathew Brady, who made portraits of many illustrious Americans on both sides of the conflict before, during, and after the war. Includes an animated explanation of...
Smithsonian Institution
National Portrait Gallery: Ballyhoo! Posters as Portraiture
Visit an example-rich exploration of poster art and learn how famous faces have been used to convey meanings and messages across the decades. An excellent resource for discovering how art can be a window into a particular time, Ballyhoo!...