Portraiture: Did you mean...?

The Bronze Age frescoes from Akrotiri on the Aegean island of Thera (modern-day Santorini) provide some of the most famous images from the ancient Greek world. Sometime between 1650 and 1550 BCE Thera suffered a devastating earthquake which...

Although life expectancy was lower in ancient Greece and Rome, many people survived into old age. Those who reached old age tended to accumulate wealth and political power. However, the societies of the ancient Mediterranean were also often...

The Ara Pacis Augustae or Altar of the Augustan Peace in Rome was built to celebrate the return of Augustus in 13 BCE from his campaigns in Spain and Gaul. The marble structure, which once stood on the Campus Martius, is a masterpiece of...

The Renaissance of 15th- and 16th-century CE Europe witnessed an extraordinary blossoming of artistic talent. In this collection of resources, we look at ten of the greatest artists from the period who offered a whole new approach to painting...

Roman artists used every medium from amber to marble, frescoes to glassware, and produced works of art that still pull in the crowds wherever surviving examples are exhibited. The Romans copied, imitated, and innovated to produce art on a...

The Ara Pacis Augustae or Altar of the Augustan Peace in Rome. Built to celebrate the return of Augustus to Rome in 13 BCE following campaigns in Spain and Gaul, it is a masterpiece of Roman sculpture and, in particular, portraiture. Officials...

The Ara Pacis Augustae or Altar of the Augustan Peace in Rome (south entrance). Built to celebrate the return of Augustus to Rome in 13 BCE following campaigns in Spain and Gaul, it is a masterpiece of Roman sculpture and, in particular...

A roman portrait bust of an unknown man, 2nd century BCE. From the palaestra of Delos. The bust is a typical example of the sometimes unflattering realism of Roman portraiture.

A detail of a basket dating to the Han dynasty (206 BCE - 220 CE) showing two rows of famous historical figures. The Han dynasty period was the first time that Chinese artists attempted portraiture. (Central History Museum, Pyongyang, North...

In western Pennsylvania, a mob has tarred and feathered a federal tax collector in the unrest surrounding the Whiskey Rebellion, 1791-1794. Illustration from the book Our first century: being a popular descriptive portraiture of the one hundred...