Memorable expressions
Elizabeth Rudy, Theodore Rousseau Assistant Curator of European Paintings, illuminated “highlights of how portraiture was pushed in different directions by different artists at key moments” for a group of about 50 art lovers Saturday at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum. Rudy’s hourlong talk, “The Portrait,” was part of Harvard Art Museums’ “Re-View” series. It spanned the second to the 19th centuries, ending with a “portrait-within-a-portrait” of the Renaissance great Raphael. Through history, portraits have been commissioned to enhance the status of the sitter and perpetuate that person’s legacy or achievements. The first piece Rudy described, “Mummy Portrait of a Woman with Earrings,” was also “an object used in religious practice and was included in the mummy shroud of the dead woman,” she said. The second-century portrait sits “at the juncture of three great art traditions: Greek, Roman, and Egyptian,” Rudy said. Next were works by Rembrandt, portraits that “give a sense of the...