Portraits

A portrait should resemble its sitter, but it should also show who that person is or wants to be. Here we follow the portrait from Egyptian queens and Roman mummy portraits to court painters, Chinese ancestor portraits, Sharaku’s actors and Warhol’s Marilyn.

• Antiquity – queens, emperors and mummies
• Profiles and mirrors – the portrait reborn
• Masters of the Renaissance – Leonardo, Raphael and Holbein
• The 17th century – burghers, kings and enigmatic girls
• Power and representation – the court portrait and Sweden
• The 19th century – the bourgeoisie, scandal and the camera
• Faces in China and Japan
• The modern portrait – from van Gogh to Warhol