William Beckford

British, 1760 - 1844

Explore Selected Works

Benjamin West, Elizabeth, Countess of Effingham, c. 1797, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1947.17.101

Elizabeth, Countess of Effingham

Benjamin West · c. 1797 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1947.17.101

Benjamin West, Maria Hamilton Beckford (Mrs. William Beckford), 1799, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1947.17.23

Maria Hamilton Beckford (Mrs. William Beckford)

Benjamin West · 1799 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1947.17.23

Shown from the hips up, a pale-skinned woman with a long, narrow face wears a richly decorated crimson-red dress in this vertical portrait painting. Her body angles to our left, and she looks in that direction with hooded brown eyes. She has a long nose, a pointed chin, and her pink lips are closed. Deep indentations at her temples and the hollows of her cheeks are shadowed. Her brown hair is parted down the middle and held back in a gold net. Large pearls hang from her ears, and a long strand of pearls doubled around her neck look white at her collar and gray down by her waist. The bodice of her dress is patterned with marigold orange and wine red, and translucent white lace covers her chest and flares up the sides of her neck. A heavy outer garment has black stripes decorated with gold leafy designs alternating with ruby-red stripes. The seams are studded with pearls down the front and along the split sleeves. A gray cuff lines the wrist of a bare, long-fingered hand, which rests across the other forearm. She wears a leather-brown glove on the other hand and clutches a white cloth in that fist. She sits on a pine-green cushion, and an apple-red curtain falls in gentle folds across the background.
Agnolo Bronzino, Eleonora di Toledo, c. 1560, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.7

Eleonora di Toledo

Agnolo Bronzino · c. 1560 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1961.9.7

Shown from the thighs up, an older, balding man with a long white beard stands wearing a full suit of armor draped in a burgundy-red cloak in this vertical portrait painting. The man’s body is angled to our right, but he looks at us from the corners of his dark eyes. He has bushy gray brows, a bumped nose, high cheekbones, and his lips are closed. He has short white hair around a receding hairline, and his beard falls to his chest. His pewter-gray armor gleams darkly with cream-white accents. With one hand, he braces a baton against his right hip, to our left, and with the other gathers the folds of his cloak down by that side. The cloak is tied over one shoulder and falls heavily around his body. His helmet rests on a shoulder-high gray stone structure, perhaps a mantle or a ledge, behind the man to our right. The rest of the background is charcoal gray.
Titian, Italian 16th Century, Vincenzo Cappello, c. 1550/1560, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1957.14.3

Vincenzo Cappello

Titian, Italian 16th Century · c. 1550/1560 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1957.14.3

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Vedute delle Ville, e d'altri Luoghi della Toscana

Giuliano Giampiccoli, Giuseppe Benedetti, Philothee-Francois Duflos, Niccolò Mogalli, Giuseppe Filosi, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Pietro Monaco, Johann Gottfried Seutter, Michele Marieschi, Vincenzo Franceschini, Marcantonio Corsi, Filippo Morghen, Joseph Wagner, Johann Sebastian Müller, Giuseppe Zocchi · published 1744 · 1 vol: ill: etched and engraved title page by Johann Gottfried Seuter after Zocchi, plus 50 etching and engravings (full-page, versos blank) after Zocchi, artists include Giuseppe Benedetti, Filippo Morghen, Pietro Monaco, Joseph Wagner, MarcantonioCorsi, Giuseppe Filosi, Niccolo Mogalli, Philothee- François Duflos, Michele Marieschi, Vincenzo Franceschini, Giuliano Giampiccoli, Johann Sebastien Müller, Giovanni Battista Piranesi ·  Accession ID  1983.49.149

Bibliography

1852

  • The Gentleman's Magazine, London, October 1852:424-425 [obituary of 10th Duke of Hamilton]

1995

  • Miles, Ellen G. American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1995: 341