Frederick Hollyer celebrity portraiture
Photographer Frederick Hollyer took many celebrity portrait photographs of artists and craftspeople.
Read article
Francis Williams: A Portrait of an Early Black Writer
This is a portrait of Francis Williams, the first recorded black writer in the British Empire. It was painted around 1745 by an unknown artist, who was probably based in Ja…
Read article
Portrait miniatures: Nicholas Hilliard & Isaac Oliver
From his workshop in Gutter Lane, London, Nicholas Hilliard painted both courtiers and other wealthy patrons.
Read article
Portrait miniatures: other types of small portraiture
This section looks at four other small portrait types which competed successfully with the portrait miniature; so-called 'plumbagos', drawn in graphite or ink on vellum; en…
Read article
Subjects for sculpture: portrait busts
Funerary monuments and portrait busts were the most common ways in which people were commemorated in sculpture. Sometimes the two were combined: a bust was placed on a fune…
Read article
Temple and worship in China
There are three main systems of belief in China: Daoism (sometimes written Taoism), Buddhism and Confucianism.
Read article
A gift in your will
You may not have thought of including a gift to a museum in your will, but the V&A is a charity and legacies form an important source of funding for our work. It is not just the great collectors and the wealthy who leave legacies to the V&A. Legacies of all sizes, large and small, make a real difference to what we can do and your support can help ensure that future generations enjoy the V&A as much as you have.
MoreShop online
Queen Elizabeth II: Portraits by Cecil Beaton (Hardback)
Photographer, costume designer, avid diarist - Cecil Beaton was also a 'romantic royalist' whose glittering photographs of Queen Elizabeth II became a…
Buy nowEvent - Gallery Talk: Portrait Busts of Men and Women of Letters and Literature
Tue 23 July 2013 14:00
This gallery talk, led by V&A Guide Elizabeth Hamilton, will discuss the lives of the sitters and the work of the artists, with a focus on such sculptors as Roubiliac, Canova, Rodin and Epstein.
