Jean-François Portaels | A Sicilian bride, 1861

Jean-François Portaels | A Sicilian bride, 1861 | Royal Collection of the United Kingdom

Three-quarter length, facing half left, her head turned to the viewer; seated on a stone bench; she wears a white dress with red trim and flower petals embroidered on the lower sleeves, and a black sleevless garment; with loosely arranged lace headgear; holding a rosary.

Eugène Laermans | Genre painter

Eugène Jules Joseph Baron Laermans (1864-1940) was a Belgian painter.

He was born in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek. At the age of eleven, he contracted meningitis, which left him deaf and nearly mute (although some sources say he was born deaf).

This concentrated his attention on his sense of sight, and led to his decision to become a painter.

He enrolled at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in 1887, where he studied with Jean-François Portaels and was a great admirer of the paintings of Félicien Rops.

Silvio Allason | Romantic painter

Silvio Allason (1845-1912) was an Italian painter, mainly of landscapes, seascapes and moonlit nocturnes.

He was a resident in Turin.

He first trained with his elder cousin, Ernesto Allason.

He captures on canvas the calm melancholy of the Alps, the terrible impetuosity of the sea, and the landscapes of moonlit nights.

Betsy Westendorp-Osieck | The Amsterdamse Joffers group

Betsy Westendorp-Osieck (1880-1968) was a Dutch painter, watercolorist, etcher, pastelist and draftsman who was part of the Amsterdamse Joffers painting group.

Johanna Elisabeth ("Betsy" or "Betsie") Osieck was born in Amsterdam 29 December 1880 to the merchant Philip Willem Osieck and Catharina Agnes Briel.

She was one of a family of five, but one of them died as a child. Westendorp-Osieck attended a French secondary school before going to a German boarding school.

She intended becoming a pianist but when that proved improbable she took up art.

Angelica Kauffmann | Neoclassical painter

Angelica Kauffmann (1741-1807) was a painter in the early Neoclassical style who is best known for her decorative wall paintings for residences designed by Robert Adam.

The daughter of Johann Joseph Kauffmann, a painter, Angelica was a precocious child and a talented musician and painter by her 12th year.

Her early paintings were influenced by the French Rococo works of Henri Gravelot and François Boucher.

Heinrich Hermanns | Cityscapes painter

Heinrich Hermanns (1862-1942) was a German lithographer and landscape painter.

He was also known for architectural paintings and vedute and was associated with the Düsseldorfer Malerschule.

Born in Düsseldorf, Hermanns completed his primary education in 1883 and went on to study at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf with Eugen Dücker, Heinrich Lauenstein, Georg Heinrich Crola and Johann Peter Theodor Janssen.

Tarsila do Amaral | Modern painter

Tarsila de Aguiar do Amaral (1886-1973) was a Brazilian painter, draftswoman and translator.

She is considered one of the leading Latin American modernist artists, and is regarded as the painter who best achieved Brazilian aspirations for nationalistic expression in a modern style.

As a member of the Grupo dos Cinco, Tarsila is also considered a major influence in the modern art movement in Brazil, alongside Anita Malfatti, Menotti Del Picchia, Mário de Andrade and Oswald de Andrade.

William Brymner | Impressionist painter

William Brymner, CMG RCA (1855-1925) was a Canadian figure and landscape painter and educator.

In addition to playing a key role in the development of Impressionism in Canada, Brymner taught numerous artists who became leading figures in Canadian modern art.