Art, Aug. 4, 1952

PUBLIC FAVORITES

Few artists prefer portraiture to other forms of painting; very few excel at it. Portraits afford little opportunity for imagination or self-expression, but they require a full measure of two great qualities: clarity of observation and rendition. The public is nevertheless partial to portraits, especially those of women & children. The four reproduced on the opposite page are public favorites at four U.S. museums.

The Blue Boy, Thomas Gainsborough’s most famed work, is the favorite at the Huntington Library and Art Gallery near Pasadena. It is a standout in the splendid $50 million collection put together between 1908 and 1927 by Railroad Heir Henry E. Huntington.

Anne Ford, also by Gainsborough, is the Cincinnati Art Museum favorite. The model later married one of Gainsborough’s patrons, Sir Philip Thicknesse, who admired the painter for finishing “with his own hands every part of the drapery,” instead of following the 18th century custom of letting an assistant do the costume.

Portrait of a Child, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts favorite, is a wonderfully natural little girl, painted by Madame Lebrun, who lived at the court of Louis XVI and did a score or more of portraits of Marie Antoinette.

Infanta Margarita, the San Diego Fine Arts Gallery favorite, is one of many paintings that Diego Velasquez, the master realist, made of the prim and lonely-looking 17th century Spanish Princess.