Portrait

An example of a portrait showing the painter Vincent van Gogh. It is a self-portrait because van Gogh is also the person who made the portrait.

Girl with a Pearl Earring, Vermeer's most famous painting.

Willem Wissing, Portrait of Laurence Hyde, 1st Earl of Rochester, c. 1685-7, Holburne Museum of Art

Portrait photograph by ‪Augusto De Luca‬

A portrait is a painting or a photograph of a person's face and its expression. The purpose of a portrait is to show the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this reason, in photography, a portrait is actually not a snapshot, but a calm image of a person in a still position. A portrait normally shows a person looking directly at the painter or photographer.

Other websites

• National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution
• National Portrait Gallery London
• Painting The Century 101 Portrait Masterpieces
• Jeanne Ivy's Self-Portrait Page - What Artists Find When They Search in the Mirror.
• Portrait Detectives - Fun interactive introduction to the analysis of portraiture.
• Reportret - A gallery of reconstructions of missing portraits from world history.