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Portrait   /pˈɔrtrət/   Listen
Portrait

noun
1.
A word picture of a person's appearance and character.  Synonyms: portraiture, portrayal.
2.
Any likeness of a person, in any medium.  Synonym: portrayal.



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"Portrait" Quotes from Famous Books



... depreciating eye towards the portrait, but, after a glance at it, suddenly regained his ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)

... that the power to do imaginative work in a literary medium is as much a special gift as the power to interpret human life on canvas. It was exactly the same thing as if you or I, who have not the remotest notion how to draw a man on horseback correctly, were to try to paint a Velasquez portrait. It did not seem to enter the poor fellow's head that the novelist, in no matter how humble a way, no matter how infinitesimal the invisible grain of muse may be, must have the especial, incommunicable gift, the queer twist of brain, if you like, ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... heart, and not less distinguished for her sound sense and good manners than for her cheerful temper and excellent housewifery." Her likeness is thus drawn, and all that we have read elsewhere concerning her confirms the truth of the portrait. Williamson says that ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie

... Dorrit greatly. He was very friendly with a couple named Meagles—a comely, healthy, good-humored and kind-hearted pair, and he was so lonely he almost thought himself in love with their daughter "Pet" for a while. But Pet soon married a portrait-painter and ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives

... mother opened the door, Tilly entered the parlor. For a second she stood and stared grimly about her. The furniture of the room was old-fashioned but in the best repair. There was a cabinet organ in one corner. A crayon portrait of Tilly's father (killed in the civil war) glared out of a florid gilt frame. Perhaps it was the fault of the portrait, but he had a peevish frown. There were two other portraits of him, large ghastly gray tintypes in oval frames ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet

... marriage, and it would have been impossible to preserve any illusions, while every weakness as well as every virtue had fullest opportunity for disclosure. There is no hint of other suitors, nor detail of the wooing, but the portrait of Governor Bradstreet, still to be seen in the Senate Chamber of the Massachusetts State House, shows a face that even in middle life, the time at which the portrait was painted, held an ardor, that at twenty-five must have made him irresistible. ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... appointed Dean of Westminster; he was again elected president of the Geological Society in 1840, and in 1848 he received the Wollaston medal. An entertaining account of Buckland is given in Mr. Tuckwell's "Reminiscences of Oxford," London, 1900, page 35, with a reproduction of the portrait from Gordon's "Life of Buckland." -on ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... already he had won no small distinction. Prizes, medals, honorable mention, and a special course abroad—all these Helen told me about. She told me, too, about the wonderful success he had just had with the portrait of a certain New York society woman. She said that it was just going to "make" Jerry; that he could have anything he wanted now—anything. Then she told me how popular he always was with everybody. Helen was not only very fond of her brother, ...
— Mary Marie • Eleanor H. Porter

... hounds, fast horses, and fast men, took place at a much more distant date than some of our hard-riding young swells of 1854 seem to imagine. A portrait of a celebrated hound, Ringwood, at Brocklesby Park, painted by Stubbs, the well-known animal painter in 1792, presents in an extraordinary manner the type and character of some of the best hounds remotely descended from him, although the Cheshire ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey

... vestments, pleated jackets, bellying out in a little flounced skirt at the waist. The legs were encased in dark skin-tight hose. On their heads were the artichoke chaperon hats like that of Charles VII in his portrait in the Louvre. The torso was enveloped in silver-threaded damask, which was crusted with jewelleries ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... judge for yourself. No man has studied his art with so much assiduity and zeal, or practised it with greater enthusiasm; but, instead of confining himself to portrait-painting, by which with half the labour and one tenth of the talent he might have made a fortune, he devoted all his youth to poverty and starving, and undertook a series of paintings that would have immortalized a man under the patronage of Leo. ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... beautiful of former days is handed down. In this way, public curiosity may be gratified, but hardly any private aspiration after fame. It is not likely that posterity will fall in love with us, but not impossible that it may respect or sympathise; and so a man would rather leave behind him the portrait of his spirit than a portrait of his face, FIGURA ANIMI MAGIS ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... No portrait of a lady, that makes her simper or scowl, is satisfactory; No photograph of a lady ever fails to ...
— Symbolic Logic • Lewis Carroll

... the Cathedral of St. Denis), 52 Figure of Henry I. in west window of Strasbourg Cathedral, 55 Birth of the Virgin (from the Grandes Heures of the Duc de Berri), 57 The Annunciation (from the Mariale of Archbishop Arnestus of Prague), 59 Painted Window at Konigsfelden, 60 Portrait of Cimabue, 61 The Madonna of the Church of Santa Maria Novella, 63 Portrait of Dante, painted by Giotto, 65 Giotto's Campanile and the Duomo (Florence), 67 Fra Angelico (from the representation of him in the fresco of the "Last Judgment" by Fra Bartolommeo), 74 ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement

... the gift of one of the several great ladies who had adopted her since her residence in London. Helen had painted a miniature of this particular great lady which had looked so beautiful that the pleasure which the original of the portrait derived from the thought that she still really looked as she did in the miniature was worth more to ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... languishing dark eyes, under pencilled eyebrows. The oval face has a character of gentle melancholy, and there is something subdued and suffering in the whole expression which invites our pity. She wears in the portrait an Empire dress, confined under the ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars

... This portrait, with the whole of the work, was written, and given to the publisher of one of the first magazines of the day, in November 1834, and the following report appeared in the papers in February 1835, and which, we think, authenticates pretty clearly the correctness of ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown

... some time past of the "splendid piccha" he had had "took," and I had been promised a sight of it just as soon as it arrived from the photographer's. I confess I had not been sanguine as to the result, although I knew a handsome portrait was confidently expected by the sitter. One morning he ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various

... thought, though with what truth none can say. The story of that is soon told. Many long years agone now, the Trevlyn whose portrait hangs below in the hall—our great grandfather—gave sentence upon an old gipsy woman that she should be burnt as a witch. Men said of her that she had overlooked their children and their cattle: that the former had ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... has a white collar; she wears grey silk stockings and black shoes; and, finally, a little black silk apron, one of those French aprons. If you must know still more exactly how she is dressed, look at Whistler's portrait of ...
— The Harlequinade - An Excursion • Dion Clayton Calthrop and Granville Barker

... Mirror, to signalise its eleventh birthday, produced a "Monster Number," yet it contained no portrait of ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 11, 1914 • Various

... but inclined to curl close to skull; strong in athletic sports; a graduate of Queen's College; has small, aristocratic feet and hands; a skilled horseman; sings a fine and unusually high tenor; has a singularly strong control over all animals. We have no portrait of him since childhood. Has strong leaning toward military life and somewhat literary tendencies. Am prepared to send blank cheque for the payment of expenses of thorough search, and add as reward when found two thousand ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch

... some unaccustomed moment of amiability, she made you a dough lady, cutting the outline deftly with her pastry knife, and then, at last, placing the human stamp upon it by sticking in two black currants for eyes. Just call to mind the face of that sugar gingerbread lady and you will have an exact portrait of Huldah's mother,—Mis' Peter Meserve, she was generally called, there being ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... valued in the usual manner, and 100 florins was the penalty for the breaking of the contract on either side. As a matter of fact it took him nearly 20 years to complete. On one of the panels Barili made a portrait of himself at work, the one referred to above, now in the K.K. Austrian Museum at Vienna, which shows the very simple means used by the great intarsiatori. His tools consist of a folding pocket-knife, a square-handled gouge, and ...
— Intarsia and Marquetry • F. Hamilton Jackson

... make her more vain than ever the Queen caused her portrait to be taken by the cleverest painters and sent it to several neighboring kings with ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various

... acknowledged that the most successful portrait was incontestably that of Master Jup. Master Jup had sat with a gravity not to be described, and ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... George Sanders (1774-1846) painted miniatures, made watercolour copies of continental master-pieces, and afterwards became a portrait-painter in oils. He painted several portraits of Byron, two of which have been ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... of the latter apartment stood an easel holding an unframed canvas. A remarkable portrait—little as I know about pictures, I could see that clearly enough. A three-quarter length of a woman wearing a ducal coronet and dressed in a magnificent costume of ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen

... communicated by Patrick Chalmers of Auldbar, Esq.; and several others are contained in the Register of the Great Seal; but the want of space, and their not serving to throw any light upon the Martyr's parentage, causes me to omit such notices. There is a fine old portrait, not unworthy of Holbein, said to be of George Wishart, in the possession of Archibald Wishart, Esq., W.S., Edinburgh, which bears the date, M.D.XLIII. AEtat. 30. If this portrait can be identified, the date would fix his birth to ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox

... some giants grown; Each passer must worship before Nepomuck, Who to die on a bridge chanced to have the ill luck, When once a man with head and ears A saint in people's eyes appears, Or has been sentenced piteously Beneath the hangman's hand to die, He's as a noted person prized, In portrait is immortalized. Engravings, woodcuts, are supplied, And through the world spread far and wide. Upon them all is seen his name, And ev'ry one admits his claim; Even the image of the Lord Is not with greater zeal ador'd. Strange fancy of the human race! Half sinner frail, half child of grace ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe

... up a much longer time in an African village, than in an English drawing room, were by mutual consent most cordially performed. I really could not help looking at her with astonishment, and I heartily wish I had the power of conveying an idea of her portrait. It was the jemma (Friday,) the sabbath, and she was covered, for I cannot call it dressed, with only a blue linen barracan, which passed under one arm, and was fastened on the top of the opposite shoulder, with a silver pin, the remaining part thrown round the body behind, and brought over ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... meantime. At first he took it for granted that it was the coarsening effect of studying for the stage, but very shortly he had decided otherwise. Whatever his skill in reproduction, Charles Graham had the eye, the mind, and the heart of the portrait-painter; and now he read the little actress's behavior with a good measure of precision. Her restlessness, her chattering, the high, unpleasing pitch of her naturally lovely low voice, her assumption of the manner and speech of the blase young person of the stage, he saw to be primarily the cover ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray

... and knowing the house better than the heir did, offered to play cicerone and show me over. In the state bed-room, a great room facing the north, he disclosed to us a secret stairway that opened behind a full-length portrait. Marmaduke, who had been unaware of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various

... holidays Stephanie had taken part in a pageant that was held in aid of a charity near her home. As Queen of the Roses she had occupied a rather important position, and her portrait, in her beautiful fancy costume, had appeared in several of the leading ladies' newspapers. Stephanie's features were good, and the photograph had been a very happy one—"glorified out of all knowledge" said some of the girls; so the photographer had exhibited it in his window, and altogether ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil

... describe Sir William as he was in friendship, as he was not only to his original contemporaries but to their sons, so that he came to be a generally looked up to father, as it were, to the magistracy of the county as well as the neighbourhood. A portrait of him by G. Richmond, Esq., R.A., was subscribed for by the magistracy and placed in the County Hall, which began to be newly restored under his auspices, so as worthily to show the work of Henry III. in the beautiful old ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge

... Choisy, the witty wife of the chancellor of the Duc d'Orleans. Its most brilliant lights were Mme. de Sevigne, Mme. de La Fayette, and La Rochefoucauld. It was here that Mme. de La Fayette made the vivid portrait of her friend Mme. de Sevigne. "It flatters me," said the latter long afterwards, "but those who loved me sixteen years ago may have thought it true." The beautiful Comtesse de Bregy, who was called one of the muses of the time, portrayed the Princess Henrietta and the irrepressible ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason

... to pay somebody to take him off her hands for a part of each day and try to teach him manners. Perhaps this is a good place to say that Jane Clemens was the original of Tom Sawyer's "Aunt Polly," and her portrait as presented in that book is considered perfect. Kind-hearted, fearless, looking and acting ten years older than her age, as women did in that time, always outspoken and sometimes severe, she was regarded as a "character" ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... much of my destiny may lie within that envelope! How fatally may my after-life be influenced by it!" It felt heavy as though there was something besides letters. True, too true; there was a picture, Lucy's portrait! The cold drops of perspiration stood upon my forehead as my fingers traced the outline of a miniature-case in the parcel. I became deadly weak, and sank, half-fainting, upon a chair. And such is the end of my first ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... Annual Convention of the National Association opened January 18, 1881, Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the chair. The first session was devoted to a memorial service for Lucretia Mott. The stage was decorated with draperies and flowers and a large portrait of Mrs. Mott stood on an easel. An exquisite floral harp was presented by the colored citizens of the District. In the audience were many distinguished people, including Mrs. Hayes and her guests from the White ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... her tinge of African blood and other charming traits, I have constructed this portrait of the future Mrs. Bratley Chylde, as the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various

... San-benito was a kind of loose over-garment painted with flames, figures of devils, the victim's own portrait, etc., worn by persons condemned to death by the Inquisition when going to the stake on the occasion of an auto-da-fe. Those who expressed repentance for their errors wore a garment of the same kind covered ...
— Candide • Voltaire

... succeeded in painting an honest portrait of himself in an autobiography, however sedulously he may have set to work about it. In spite of his candid purpose he omits necessary touches and adds superfluous ones. At times he cannot help draping his thought, and the least shred of ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... the very end of his life he was growing in ease and ripeness, was discovering more perfect modes of self-expression, and was purging himself of his compromising intellectual frailties. It is true that from the very first his excellences were patent. The portrait of my Uncle Toby, which Hazlitt truly said is "one of the finest compliments ever paid to human nature," occurs, or rather begins, in the second volume of Tristram Shandy. But the marvellous portraits which the early sections ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... years ago to be an advertisement of a "Popular Educator" in which a youth with a curly head of hair and a face of delightful innocence was depicted. Underneath the portrait the inquiry was printed, "What will he become?" And there was then given an illustrated alternative as to the appearance of this innocent youth at different ages in his career according to the path he trod in life. One alternative eventuated ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery

... wife of a fisherman named Munroe identified the same body as that of her husband drowned a week or so before. No matter; as Weed said, "It's good enough Morgan until after the election"—a characteristic remark, if we may judge by his own portrait as drawn in his Autobiography. Politically, he was capable of anything, if he could make it win, and here he saw a chance of stirring up every vile and slimy thing in human nature for sake of office. (See a splendid review ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton

... described as a fancy subject, and designated Nature and Art. Opposite this fine picture of our English master hung another group, by Rembrandt; making up in force and colour what it lacked in delicacy and refinement. The subject was the De Witt family; and each portrait wore that genuine stamp of truth that left no question of their ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power

... that she was of German extraction, and I have seen her portrait. She was a very beautiful woman. She died of typhoid the year before I ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... tragic ingredients of the New Comedy, or Comedy in general. There is yet a third, however, which in itself is neither comic nor tragic, in short, not even poetic. I allude to its portrait-like truthfulness. The ideal and caricature, both in the plastic arts and in dramatic poetry, lay claim to no other truth than that which lies in their significance: their individual beings even are not intended to appear real. Tragedy moves in an ideal, and ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... prominent, because it is entirely foreign to the author's object, which is to display the inward emotions of the new birth, the spiritual journey alone, apart from all temporal affairs. Multitudes read it as if it was really a dream, the old sleeping portrait confirming the idea. In the story, Christian most mysteriously embodies all classes of men, from the prince to the peasant—the wealthiest noble, or merchant, to the humbles mechanic or labourer—and it illustrates the most solemn, certain truth, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... I think so," said the artist, cheerily. "I was talking to Drinkwater here about painting his portrait; but he won't hear a word of it. But I have got him in my mind's eye all the same, and I shall paint him whether he likes it or not," continued Mr Manners, as he looked laughingly at the boys, and then went on dipping his brush in the colours on the palette, rubbing it ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn

... coarseness or exaggeration; and when this fact was accepted, the art of caricaturing underwent a complete transition, and assumed a new form. The "Sketches" of H. B. owe their chief attraction to the excellence of their designer as a portrait painter; his successors, with less power in this direction but with better general artistic abilities, rapidly improved upon his idea, and thus was founded the modern school of graphic satirists represented by Richard Doyle, John Leech, and ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... would be famous and instructive and replete with interest to all ages; to wit: the one of Miss Reeve (?) [Footnote: Lady Smith. The (?) presumably is whether the portrait was taken before or after her marriage.] by Opie, showing the 'human face divine' in a female of the highest race of mankind, at her prime of beauty; and the second—could it but be got—by Millais, of Lady Smith, giving the characteristics ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton

... ever seen the portrait you speak of. I remember the artist—a clever fellow, whose name, of course, I forget—but I do not think I saw his finished work. Some of these days I will ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... tinged with gray. His manner indicated an extremely nervous sense of responsibility, and the attitude of deference, which the others observed in his regard, was very noticeable. His face reminded me vaguely of some portrait—I ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson

... to the power of literature—from a first-class fighting man. It is as though John Sargent should paint an inaccurate but idealized portrait, and the original should make it accurate by imitation. The soldiers were transformed by the renewing of their minds. Beholding with open face as in a glass a certain image, they were changed into ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps

... many years, studying the fairest points of beautiful women, getting here an eye, there a forehead and there a nose, here a grace and there a turn of beauty, for his famous portrait of a perfect woman which enchanted the world. So the coming man will be a composite, many in one. He will absorb into himself not the weakness, not the follies, but the strength and the virtues of other types of men. ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... Guersaint drew near to examine the portrait, whilst Majeste exclaimed: "Bernadette, yes, certainly—she was rather like Apolline, but not nearly so nice; she looked so sad ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... his rogue of a father"—an expression which my grandfather never forgave. He was as constant in his dislikes as in his attachments; and exceedingly partial to Webb, whose side he took against the more celebrated general. We have General Webb's portrait now ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... contemplation was published, the Countess Guiccioli was in London, and received much kindness from Mr. Murray. After her return to Rome, she wrote to him a long letter, acknowledging the beautifully bound volume of the landscape and portrait illustrations of Lord Byron's works. She complained, however, ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... handsome matronly face, full of sense and kindness, and her young daughter, Princess Elise, who passed away in the springtime of her life. In these rustic sitting-rooms and the adjacent bedrooms and dressing-rooms we come again on many a portrait of the humble friends of the family—the dogs which we seem to know so well; the early group of little Dash and big Nero, and Hector with the parrot Lorey; Cairnach, Islay, Deckel, &c. [Footnote: An anecdote of the royal kennels states that when no notice has been given, the servants shall know ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler

... come before Hilda's impression was at the back of her head, her defences withdrawn, her eyes free and content, her elbow on the table. They had found a portrait-painter. ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... hours dragging themselves wearily on towards the night. It was typical April weather—squalls and sunshine in capricious succession. When it drew towards dusk she put on her best clothes for the Festival, stuffing a few precious mementoes into her pockets and wearing her father's portrait next to her lover's at her breast. She hung a travelling cloak and a hat on a peg near the hall-door ready to hand as she left the house. Of little use was she in the kitchen that day, but her mother was tender to her as knowing her sorrow. Time after time ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... composed of three rather deep ruffles edged with lace. Round her pretty white neck she had an inch-wide black velvet, fastened with a tiny diamond that Stephen had brought her a week ago. She looked like a picture, Margaret thought, and later her portrait in costume was exhibited ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas

... I had found in the bag, for I hoped soon to hear from headquarters concerning the lady whose name it bore. But I told him about the photograph I had found in Mr. Crawford's desk, and showed it to him. He did not recognize it as being a portrait of any one he had ever seen. Nor did he take it very seriously ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells

... reproduced the portrait I have published, as given by Dr. Kuyper. It disturbs the conception presented to their readers by journalists, whose dishonesty is only equalled by their ignorance. Quoting his own statements, I have shown Boer relations with the natives; ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot

... Then he passed to his father, portly, impressive, a high liver, a generous young blood, and then to the classic Saint—Memin profile of Aunt Susannah, limned delicately against a background of faded pink. And from her he went on to his mother's portrait, painted in shimmering brocade under rose garlands ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... for historical portrait painting; but we must find room for another of that Greenaway party whose nature was as fine as that of Gilbert, and who intellectually was more largely gifted. The latter was drowned in 1583. In 1585 John Davis left Dartmouth on his first voyage into ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... which this valuable treatise has been published, unless by actual comparison with those printed before the author's decease. Some considerable omissions, doubtless, arose from political causes. Bunyan died very shortly before the glorious revolution in 1688,—and in drawing a faithful portrait of a publican or tax gatherer, he supposed the country to be conquered by a foreign power. "Would it not be an insufferable thing? yea, did not that man deserve hanging ten times over, that should, being a Dutchman, fall in with ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... city of amusements, among the other arts, I cannot help pointing out to your particular notice, Richlieu's monument in the Sorbonne, as an inimitable piece of modern sculpture[G] by Girardeau; and Madame la Valliere's full-length portrait by le Brun: She was, you know, mistress to Lewis the XIVth, but retired to the convent, in which the picture now is, and where she lived in repentance and ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse

... his possession, Penn returned home to make the final arrangements with Sidney for the great work he had undertaken. The document was written on a roll of parchment. At the head of the first sheet there is a well-executed portrait of Charles the Second, while the borders are handsomely emblazoned with heraldic devices. Great had been the opposition made to Penn's receiving this grant. Sidney had ...
— A True Hero - A Story of the Days of William Penn • W.H.G. Kingston

... "Devil Caresfoot," a sobriquet in which he took peculiar pride. So pleased was he with it, indeed, that he caused it to be engraved in solid oak letters an inch long upon the form of a life-sized and life-like portrait of himself that hung over the staircase ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... of the Withers family had counted a martyr to their faith before they were known as Puritans. The record was obscure in some points; but the portrait, marked "Ann Holyoake, burned by ye bloudy Papists, ano 15.." (figures illegible), was still hanging against the panel over the fireplace in the west parlor at The Poplars. The following words were yet legible on the canvas: "Thou hast ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... such a delight to have you with us," she was saying in joyous tones, as though his coming brought a holiday. "When I knew you were to be here I began right away to build castles. You are to paint my portrait first, and then you are to paint Phil's. Isn't that it, Judge? Come Phil, dear, and shake hands with ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith

... she hastily told me, a noble Italian Knight, who had desired to see our pictures; so we went into the guest chamber, which was all lighted up as when company was bidden. Nay, it was of such festal aspect as well nigh dazzled me, and I discerned at once that my portrait, which only a few days ago had been hanged on the wall by the side of Ann's for my lord Cardinal, was now placed on two chairs and leaning against the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... not because she struck me as beautiful. It was something much more strange. Do you know? She is the very portrait of Donna Maria, who was in the Carmelite convent at Subiaco, and who was burned to death. I have often told you that I remembered having seen her when I was a boy, both at Gerano and at the Palazzo Braccio, before she took the veil. There is a little difference in the colouring, I think, ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford

... star on the left breast and epaulettes on the shoulders, denoted that it was intended for the effigy of some famous admiral; but, without those helps, any observer might have supposed it the authentic portrait of a distinguished merman, or great sea-monster. Being originally much too large for the apartment which it was now employed to decorate, it had been sawn short off at the waist. Even in this state it ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... not suspect me of vanity for indulging in these quotations; he will see readily that my desire is to let the young man paint his own portrait, and I hope he will catch glimpses as I seem to do of an earnest spirit, a sort of protestant Father Gogarty, hesitating on the brink of his lake. "There is a lake in every man's heart"—but I must not quote my own writings. If I misinterpret him ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... cameo her mother had been used to wear. It was impossible to look at herself in the doing; but when the deed was over, she went again to the glass and stood there, held by a wonder beyond her will. She had resurrected the creature she loved; this was an enduring portrait, perpetuating, in her own life, ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown

... that chin and that mouth right back through seven generations of the Slide family. Paul's father wus a good man, had a good face; took it from his mother: but his father, Paul's grandfather, died a drunkard. They have got a oil-portrait of him at Paul's old home: I stopped there on my way home from Cicely's one time. And for all the world he looked most exactly like Paul,—the same sort of a irresolute, handsome, weak, fascinating look to him. And all through them ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)

... pieces of old china. A jardiniere filled with living plants and placed near a bay window makes an elegant ornament. Care should be taken in arranging that the room be not over-crowded. There should be a few good pictures or painted plaques mounted in plush hung on the walls; a portrait may be placed on a common easel and draped with a scarf in old gold or peacock-blue, and tiny lambrequins, painted or embroidered, may hang beneath a bracket supporting ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous

... suite of five pieces upholstered in cheap satin damask, with a what-not in one corner, and an easel holding a crayon portrait of Abe and his bride at the time of their wedding, in the other corner, graced this best room. A few cheap chromos flared against the gorgeous-patterned wall-paper, and a mantel-shelf was crowded with all sorts of nick-nacks and ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... and afterwards earl of Strafford—the most prominent man of the royalist party, and the greatest traitor to the cause of liberty which England had ever known. His picture, as painted by Vandyke, and hung up in the princely hall of his descendant, Earl Fitzwilliam, is a faithful portrait of what history represents him—a cold, dark, repulsive, unscrupulous tyrant, with an eye capable of reading the secrets of the soul, a brow lowering with care and thought, and a lip compressed with determination, ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... desk at which he stood to write, and books are everywhere. Even closets supposed to be devoted to pails and dust-cloths "have three shelves for books and one for pails." In his own bedroom, where the exquisite portrait of his wife by Rowse hangs over the fireplace, there is a small bookcase near his bed which contains a choice collection of the English poets. Vaughan, Henry King, and others of that lovely company of the past. These were his most intimate friends. In the copy of Henry King, I found ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields

... Queens'—the foundation of Margaret of Anjou, which Elizabeth Woodville had succoured, York coming to the rescue of Lancaster—he was able without difficulty to secure rooms in college for his protege. High up they are, at the head of a stair-case, where undergraduates still cherish his name, and where his portrait—an heirloom from one generation to another—may be seen surrounded by prints of gentlemen in pink riding to hounds; quite a suitable collocation for this very humanly minded scholar. Besides his own work he lectured publicly for a ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen

... PORTRAITS* and at the same time extend our business and make new customers, we have decided to make this Special Offer: Send us a Cabinet Picture, Photograph, Tintype, Ambrotype or Daguerotype of yourself or any member of your family, living or dead and we will make you a CRAYON PORTRAIT FREE OF CHARGE, provided you exhibit it to your friends as a sample of our work, and use your influence in securing us future orders. Place name and address on back of picture and it will be returned in perfect order. We make any change in picture you wish, not interfering with the likeness. Refer ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various

... men, are the better for wives and families; for, without them, they are wonderfully apt to grow saturnine or stupid. Of course there are exceptions. Vincent had a wife not much younger than himself, to whom he always spoke with the courtiership of a preux chevalier. A portrait of her in her bridal dress, showed that she had been a pretty brunette in her youth; and her husband still evidently gave her credit for all that she had been. They had, as is generally the fate ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... friend's discourse my uncle's eyes rested on a full-length portrait, which struck him as being the very counterpart of his visitor of ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... the career of an ambitious young man of rank; and in this story the brilliant author has preserved to us the exact tone of the English drawing-room, as he so well knew it, sketching with sure and rapid strokes a whole portrait gallery of notables, disguised in name may be, but living characters nevertheless, who charm us with their graceful manners and general air of being people of consequence. "Vivian Grey," then, though not a ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... mouth, but sometimes he only pretended to throw them. This made the animal very angry, and as if knowing that the painter rather than his servant was the one to blame, he finally turned to him and dashed a quantity of water from his trunk over the paper on which the painter was sketching his portrait. ...
— Anecdotes of Animals • Unknown

... answered the merchant, "I entreat you in the name of all this noble company, that you constrain us not to lay perjury to our souls by swearing to a thing which we have neither seen nor heard. Show us, at least, some portrait of this lady, though it be no bigger than a grain of wheat, that our scruples may be satisfied. For so strongly are we disposed in favor of the fair dame, that even if the picture should exhibit her squinting with one eye, and dropping brimstone and vermilion from the other, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... stealing in through the coloured glass of the high windows, or in winter evenings with no light but that of the fire fitfully dancing on the rows and rows and rows of books that lined the walls from floor to ceiling, only varied here and there by the portrait of some powdered-haired great-grandfather or grandmother smiling, or sometimes, perhaps, frowning down on their funny little descendant in his sailor-suit, with his short-cropped, dark head. A quaint little figure against the gleaming white fur, dreaming—what?—he ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth

... of beauty is the same in every breast, savage and civilized. Every nation's characteristic Form or expression of beauty will be a representation, or portrait, of their characteristic virtue, their happiness, their good. Thus, in the opinion of the wild savage, that face or form will be the most beautiful that assimilates with his idea of savage virtues, corporeal strength, courage, &c. perfections that are placed in bones and nerves: as that of the ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of - our Ideas of Beauty, etc. • Frances Reynolds

... came in from their walk quite full of it, and of all the wonderful things they had seen in the village. Outside the blacksmith's forge there was a great bill pasted, which showed in bright colours the brilliant performance of "Floretta the Flying Fairy" on horseback; there was also a full-length portrait of Mick Murphy the ...
— The Hawthorns - A Story about Children • Amy Walton

... opportunity of taking the oath and returning to his home. With his own lips he told me that on that fatal field he had found the body of an English officer, in whose cold hand lay an open locket, and in the locket two portraits; one the portrait of a fair English lady, and the other that of a still fairer English child. So, before the eyes of one dying on the blood-stained veldt did visions of home and loved ones flit. Life's last look turned thither! In war, the cost in ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry

... to his liking," returned John Massingbird. "Folks preach about tobacco being an acquired taste! It's all bosh. Babies come into the world with a liking for it, I know. Talking about your father, would you like to have that portrait of him that hangs in the large drawing-room? You can if you like. I'm sure you have more right to it ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... deepest blue With yellow-lustred stars o'erlaid, Colors of every tint and hue Mingle in one harmonious whole! With large blue eyes and steadfast gaze, Her yellow hair in net and braid, Necklace and ear-rings all ablaze With golden lustre o'er the glaze, A woman's portrait; on the scroll, Cana, the Beautiful! A name Forgotten save for such brief fame As this memorial can bestow,— A gift some lover long ago Gave with his heart to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... the uniformly grave and severe expression of his countenance. He is represented by those who knew him, to have been a remarkably fine looking man, always plain but neat in his dress, and of a commanding personal presence. His portrait, it is believed, was never painted, owing probably to his strong ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake

... charming slang? Our gardens consisted of a pot of tulips; thou didst mask the window with thy petticoat; I took the earthenware bowl and I gave thee the Japanese cup. And those great misfortunes which made us laugh! Thy cuff scorched, thy boa lost! And that dear portrait of the divine Shakespeare which we sold one evening that we might sup! I was a beggar and thou wert charitable. I kissed thy fresh round arms in haste. A folio Dante served us as a table on which to eat merrily a centime's ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... collection of autograph letters. It was the picture of a well-known actress. He then recalled an advertisement announcing that this particular brand of cigarettes contained, in each package, a lithographed portrait of some famous actor or actress, and that if the purchaser would collect these he would, in the end, have a valuable album of the greatest actors and actresses of the day. Edward turned the picture over, only to find a blank reverse side. "All very well," he thought, ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... and reflections, so with portraits; they are often believed to contain the soul of the person portrayed. People who hold this belief are naturally loth to have their likenesses taken; for if the portrait is the soul, or at least a vital part of the person portrayed, whoever possesses the portrait will be able to exercise a fatal influence over the original of it. Thus the Esquimaux of Bering Strait believe that persons dealing in witchcraft ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... "Histriomastix," a play revised by Marston in 1598, has been regarded as the one in which Jonson was thus "represented on the stage"; although the personage in question, Chrisogonus, a poet, satirist, and translator, poor but proud, and contemptuous of the common herd, seems rather a complimentary portrait of Jonson than a caricature. As to the personages actually ridiculed in "Every Man Out of His Humour," Carlo Buffone was formerly thought certainly to be Marston, as he was described as "a public, scurrilous, ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson

... the establishment. In the other corner was a bed of much humbler pretensions, and evidently designed for use. The wall over the fireplace was adorned with some very brilliant scriptural prints, and a portrait of General Washington, drawn and colored in a manner which would certainly have astonished that hero, if ever he happened to meet with ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... a little later, all his belongings in one of the leather bags. For some time he had hesitated over the portrait of the Girl; twice he had shut the lock on it; the third time he placed it in the big, breast pocket inside the coat Father Roland had provided for him, making a mental apology for that act by assuring himself that sooner or later he would show the picture ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood

... delicate, makes a sad figure. Most historians, following the example of Voltaire, have represented this prince as a narrow-minded person, a victim of the bigoted and intolerant education of the clergy. Merezhkovsky, a more discreet psychologist, does not rely on these superficial data, but shades the portrait admirably. He makes Alexis an intelligent man, not like his father, but a man with a comprehensive, subtle spirit. He probably was crushed by the powerful individuality of his father. As he is closely in touch with the people, and knows their aspirations, Alexis judges the work ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky

... the maiden as they walked arm in arm to that squat little veranda! The picture to-day would be worth its weight in a first-water diamond. It would include the cabin, the cherry-tree, a glimpse of the raw, wild background and a sharp portrait-group of Pere Beret, Alice, and Jean the hunchback. To compare it with a photograph of the same spot now would give a perfect impression of the historic atmosphere, color and conditions which cannot be set in words. But we must not belittle the power of verbal description. ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... a portrait of Sir Frederick, painted by Samuel Woodford, R.A., and engraved by Henry Meyer. The original is ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland

... inflict injury upon the person of the emperor, and that he, William, had, after all, got nothing but what he deserved for playing such a prank. Moreover, in order to show the citizen that he bore him no grudge, he sent him, by way of consolation for his arrest and the destruction of his hat, a portrait bearing the autograph signature of the kaiser, as well as the words: "In memory of Sylvester-nacht."—New Year's eve ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy

... is a faithful portrait of the inkstand, called Tintero de Escribano, which the Spanish scriveners always carry about with them, and which it is most improbable that M. Le Sage should ever have seen in his life, or indeed have heard of but through the medium of a Spanish manuscript. The account proceeds; and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various

... is said to have used his influence with Leo to soften a severe temper, to restore many persons to his favour, to obtain the recal of many from banishment. He took special care of the churches, and of the clergy serving them, and they in return put his portrait everywhere. Acacius was considered an excellent bishop when ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies

... Countries, and remained there for some months. He visited most of the large cities, took into his service many Flemish artisans, and made the personal acquaintance of Quentin Matsys and Albrecht Duerer, the latter of whom painted his portrait. Christian also entertained Erasmus, with whom he discussed the Reformation, and let fall the characteristic expression: "Mild measures are of no use; the remedies that give the whole body a good shaking are the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... Warwick family. The walls are hung with Brussels tapestry, representing the gardens of Versailles as they were at the time. The chimney-piece, which is sculptured of verde antique and white marble, supports two black marble vases on its mantel. Over the mantel-piece is a full-length portrait of Queen Anne, in a rich brocade dress, wearing the collar and jewels of the garter, bearing in one hand a scepter, and in the other a globe. There are two splendid buhl cabinets in the room, and a table of costly stone from Italy; ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various

... Scott accept this gentleman's evidence without question, but I confess suspicion of a memory that runs back more than eighty-one years, and recollects a man before he had any claim to remembrance. Dryden was never poor, and there is at Oxford a portrait of him painted in 1664, which represents him in a superb periwig and laced band. This was "before he had paid his court with success to the great." But the story is at least ben trovato, and morally true ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... lady, Dame Jocelyn by name, lived in one of the upper rooms of this notable building. She was a dashing young belle at the time of Washington's first visit to the town, and must have been exceedingly coquettish and pretty, judging from a certain portrait on ivory still in the possession of the family. According to Dame Jocelyn, George Washington flirted with her just a little bit—in what a stately and highly finished manner can ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... between the common native sheep, and the improved breeds, of which we have spoken, a true portrait of the former is inserted, which will be readily recognized as the creature which embellishes, in so high a degree, many of the wild nooks, and ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen

... then unborn might one day be richer for this crime, but that did not comfort Hannah, now, and the future held no gleam of hope or happiness for her, as she put the papers, and the watch, and the gold, and the portrait, together in the tin box, and tried to think ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes

... known what vanity or ambition or the love of money or social influence meant. As it is, he was known by half-a-dozen friends. He was worthy of being Ba's father—out of the whole world, only he, so far as my experience goes. She loved him,—and he said, very recently, while gazing at her portrait, that only that picture had put into his head that there might be such a thing as the worship of the images of saints. My sister will come and live with me henceforth. You see what she loses. All her life has been spent in caring for my mother, ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... hung faded photographs of actors and actresses, most of them with bold inscriptions dashed across their corners in which the donors invariably expressed their friendship, affection, or if the chirography was feminine their devoted love, for "dear Claude Martel." Over the mantel was a portrait of dear Claude himself, taken in the role of Mark Antony, and making rather a good job of it, on the whole, with his fine ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... chiefs of the Katuns was represented in the native calendars by the picture or portrait of a particular personage who in some way was identified with the Katun, and his name was given to it. This has not been dwelt upon nor even mentioned by previous writers on the subject, but I have copies of various native manuscripts which illustrate it, and give the names of each of the rulers ...
— The Maya Chronicles - Brinton's Library Of Aboriginal American Literature, Number 1 • Various

... been about sixty years of age, but was still robust and strong, and had the reputation of being able to mow more hay in a given time than any other peasant in the village. His head would have made a line study for a portrait-painter. Like Russian peasants in general, he wore his hair parted in the middle—a custom which perhaps owes its origin to the religious pictures. The reverend appearance given to his face by his long fair beard, slightly tinged with grey, was in part counteracted by his eyes, which had a strange ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... the forehead nearly up to the nape of the neck. The neck also is entirely white. There are two varieties of the Alpine or St. Bernard dog, one having long hair and the other shorter and very thick hair. We give in Fig. 1 a portrait of Cano, a large St. Bernard ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various

... nephew 250 roubles. Two months later he asked for more; she got together every penny she had and sent it him. Not six weeks after the second donation he was asking a third time for help, ostensibly to buy colours for a portrait bespoken by Princess Tertereshenev. Tatyana Borissovna refused. 'Under these circumstances,' he wrote to her, 'I propose coming to you to regain my health in the country.' And in the May of the same year Andryusha did, in fact, return ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev

... divines et humaines," &c. Sir R. Clayton's Translation of Tenhove's Memoirs of the Medici, vol. i. ch. ii. p. 104. The Tresor has never been printed in the original language. There is a fine manuscript of it in the British Museum, with an illuminated portrait of Brunetto in his study prefixed. Mus. Brit. MSS. 17, E. 1. Tesor. It is divided into four books, the first, on Cosmogony and Theology, the second, a translation of Aristotle's Ethics; the third on Virtues and Vices; the fourth, on Rhetoric. For an interesting memoir relating to this ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... female by Burghart, as well as by Ferrein; declared asexual or neutral by the Danish surgeon, Kruger; of doubtful sex by Mertrud. The case of Marie-Madeleine Lefort, to which Debierre devotes four figures, is full of interest. One of the figures is her portrait at the age of sixteen, and another is from her photograph at the age of sixty-five. She has a man's head in every particular of physiognomy and expression, having in the latter figure a full beard and ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... days the President of the Royal Academy painted a very striking portrait of Jane Porter, as "Miranda," and Harlowe painted her in the canoness dress of the order ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various



Words linked to "Portrait" :   portray, characterisation, likeness, delineation, depiction, half-length, picture, word picture, word-painting, characterization, semblance



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