Collection
Portrait in Renaissance & Baroque painting
274 paintings exploring the theme of portrait, from artists including Adriaen Isenbrant, Albrecht Dürer, Andrea Solario, Anonymous and across institutions such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago.
The Birth and Naming of Saint John the Baptist; (reverse) Trompe-l'oeil with Painting of The Man of Sorrows
Bernard van Orley
David standing with crossed legs and holding the head of Goliath on a pedestal at left, a sword on the ground, after Reni
Gilles Rousselet
The Dance of Death: Expulsion from Paradise; Adam Cultivating the Ground
Hans Holbein the Younger
Coat of Arms of John Frederic, Elector of Saxony, called the Magnanimous
Lucas Cranach
James the Greater from Christ, the Apostles, and Saint Paul
Lucas Cranach the Elder, After
James the Less from Christ, the Apostles, and Saint Paul
Lucas Cranach the Elder, After
Reconciliation of the Romans and the Sabines (recto) Venus Disarming Mars, Drapery Study (verso)
Peter Paul Rubens
The Feast of Herod (recto) Tomyris with the Head of Cyrus (verso)
Peter Paul Rubens
The Meeting of Christ with Martha and Mary after the Death of Lazarus
Rembrandt van Rijn
Saint Agapitus of Praeneste in the Arena; (interior) The Beheading of Saint Agapitus of Praeneste
Swiss Painter
Venus and Mars with Cupid and the Three Graces in a Landscape
Domenico Tintoretto
Portrait of Sir Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex (1485-1540)
Attributed to Hans Holbein the Younger
Portrait of Magdalena of Saxony, Wife of Elector Joachim II of Brandenburg
Lucas Cranach the Elder
The Sampling Officials of the Amsterdam Drapers’ Guild, Known as ‘The Syndics’
Rembrandt van Rijn
Portrait of a couple, thought to be Adriaen Wittert van der Aa and Maria Knotter
Gerrit Dou
Double Portrait of Willem II (1626-1650), Prince of Orange, and Princess Mary Stuart (1631-1660), later Princess Royal
Anthony van Dyck
Why portrait dominated Renaissance and Baroque art
The theme of portrait returns again and again across two centuries of European painting. Renaissance and Baroque artists were working inside a culture where this subject carried specific weight: religious, civic, moral, erotic, political. The paintings collected here are not a random group — they are a record of how that subject was handled, contested, and reinvented by the painters who shaped Western art.
Each painting page on Paintale opens with the story of the work, then drills into the symbols a contemporary viewer would have read, the techniques the painter used to make those symbols feel inevitable, and the provenance trail that brought the painting from its first patron to its current museum wall.