Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Portrait   /pˈɔrtrət/   Listen
Portrait

noun
1.
A word picture of a person's appearance and character.  Synonyms: portraiture, portrayal.
2.
Any likeness of a person, in any medium.  Synonym: portrayal.



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Portrait" Quotes from Famous Books



... a number of other things besides. She laughingly observed that a few strokes would quickly picture the surrounding scenery. She amused herself with copying a huge tuft of the tussock-grass which grew near, and then made me stand and sit, now in one position, now in another, while she took my portrait. Then telling me to play about near her, and to take care not to tumble off the rock, she sat down to meditate. What her thoughts were about I cannot say, but she certainly very often looked in the ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston

... inscription, the portrait of my mother in the case, and showed him a copy of her photograph—like the one here. Then I gave him as close a description of the man ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith

... State in the Union. The platform was fragrant with evergreens and flowers, brilliant with rich furniture, crowded with distinguished women, while soft music with its universal language attuned all hearts to harmony. The beautiful portrait of the sainted Lucretia Mott, surrounded with smilax and lilies of the valley, seemed to sanctify the whole scene and to give a touch of pathos to ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... "The Portrait of a Lady" was, like "Roderick Hudson," begun in Florence, during three months spent there in the spring of 1879. Like "Roderick" and like "The American," it had been designed for publication in "The Atlantic Monthly," ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... had had. He was at the theatre every night, watching her from the front, taking the liveliest interest in her success, and promoting it in every possible way. A critic who ventured to find fault he threatened to horsewhip; he put her portrait in the papers and printed interesting stories concerning her that had only his imagination for foundation. He transacted business for her with the local manager, and acted in her behalf in all the necessary negotiations with the Church ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow

... pirate is a masterpiece of shrewd humour. He is the first Quaker brought into English fiction, and we know of no other Friend in latter-day fiction to equal him. Defoe in his inimitable manner has defined surely and deftly the peculiar characteristics of the sect in this portrait. On three separate occasions we find William saving unfortunate natives or defenceless prisoners from the cruel and wicked barbarity of the sailors. At page 183, for example, the reader will find a most penetrating ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe

... room led into a dressing-room, which next caught my attention. Here, too, the only thing that struck me was a portrait. This time, a photograph only, of a boy. Such a nice, open face! For a moment or two I thought it must be Cousin Cosmo, but looking more closely I saw written in one corner the name 'Paul' and the date 'July 1865.' I caught my breath, as I said ...
— My New Home • Mary Louisa Molesworth

... died, a year or so after the birth of her brother Horace. The relatives of whom she knew were all on her father's side, and lived scattered about England. When she sought information concerning her mother, Mr. Lord became evasive and presently silent; she had seen no portrait of the dead parent. Of late years this obscure point of the family history had ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing

... by their right name, at the outset. If the pretended steward, for there is no steward here, if the baron is as clever as his footman, I shall have nothing to base my information on, excepting what they conceal from me. This room is very fine. There is neither portrait of the king, nor emblem of royalty here. Well, it is plain they do not frame their opinions. Is the furniture suggestive of anything? No. It is too new to have been even paid for. But for the air which the porter whistled, doubtless a signal, ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac

... the great Bedfordshire artist have contemplated his masterly pages as day by day he added to them the portrait of some new scoundrel, or painted with dexterous and loving hand the wholesome outlines of some honest man, or devised some new phrase which like a new note or new colour would delight singer or painter ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... "I know them both; and, as I have mentioned that your meeting with them seemed funny to me, I suppose I ought to tell you the reason. Some time ago a photographer in Walford, who has taken a portrait of me and also of Miss Putney and Miss Burton, took it into his head to print the three on one card and expose them for sale with a ridiculous inscription under them. This created a great deal ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton

... go like a javelin to the heart of many a home. Madame Marneffes are to be seen in every sphere of social life, even at Court; for Valerie is a melancholy fact, modeled from the life in the smallest details. And, alas! the portrait will not cure any man of the folly of loving these sweetly-smiling angels, with pensive looks and candid faces, whose ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... fifteenth birthday drew near, the fairy began to tremble lest something terrible should happen—some accident which had not been foreseen. 'Do not let her out of your sight,' said Tulip to the queen, 'and meanwhile, let her portrait be painted and carried to the neighbouring Courts, as is the custom in order that the kings may see how far her beauty exceeds that of every other princess, and that they may demand her in marriage for ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various

... is her suggestive portrait of the other, drawn with that skill which is only displayed when one genius interprets another through community of ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... nature, of all his thoughts, and all his impulses or hesitancies. Thus they conceal psychology instead of flaunting it; they use it as the skeleton of the work, just as the invisible bony framework is the skeleton of the human body. The artist who paints our portrait does not ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant

... cried the Major; "robbed, not fifteen feet below us. Robbed, ladies and gentlemen, of the most cherished treasures of her life, the portrait of her only son, the savings of a life of honest toil, her poor dead husband's tobacco-box, and a fine cut of ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... portrait of his mother. It was the picture of a comely girl, young and soft, with full ripe lips and bright brown eyes. Philip shuddered as he looked at it. The portrait was like the ghost of himself looking through the ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... in two forms: one similar to the first edition and one with only frontispiece, a portrait of Shakespear, and the following foreword from the pen, I ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... considered to be the most famous painter of the ancient world. Alexander the Great once visited his studio, and exhibited so much ignorance of art that Apelles desired him to be silent, as the boys who were grinding his colours were laughing at him. He painted an ideal portrait of this celebrated king, of which Alexander said, "There are only two Alexanders—the invincible son of Philip, and the inimitable Alexander of Apelles." The painter's disposition was so generous that he purchased a picture of an artist whose talents were not recognised as ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... been taken possession of by a Trust which has restored it to its original condition. Its walls are covered with the initials of visitors; there is nothing to be seen in the house that has any proved connection with Shakespeare excepting his portrait, painted when he was about forty-five years old. The sign of the butcher who had the building before the Trust bought it is also exhibited, and states that "The immortal Shakespeare was born in this house." His birth took place in this ancient but carefully preserved ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... conjecture; from L50 to L100 seems to have been the limits of the appraiser's taste and imagination. Some whose price is whimsically low may have been thus rated from a political feeling respecting the portrait of the person; there are, however, in this singular appraised catalogue two pictures, which were rated at, and sold for, the remarkable sums of one and of two thousand pounds. The one was a sleeping Venus by Correggio, and the other a Madonna by Raphael. There ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... herself had secretly made of her lover, and which, though inartificially and even rudely done, yet had caught the inspiration of memory, and breathed the very features and air that were stamped already ineffaceably upon a heart too holy for so sullied an idol. She gazed upon the portrait as if it could answer her question of the original; and as she looked and looked, her tears slowly ceased, and her innocent countenance relapsed gradually into its usual and eloquent serenity. Never, perhaps, could Lucy's own portrait have ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... principle, assisted by unpretending good sense and temper, without any of the beauty, grace, talent, accomplishment, and wit, to which a heroine of romance is supposed to have a prescriptive right. If the portrait was received with interest by the public, I am conscious how much it was owing to the truth and force of the original sketch, which I regret that I am unable to present to the public, as it was written with much feeling ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various

... possible, and now I'd like you to go over to the morgue with Lydia, and wait there until she has the body dressed in these clothes, and the hair done according to the instructions Mrs. Selim left.... I'll leave the posing to you, but I want a full-length picture as well as a head portrait." ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin

... founds his determination of the order or date of the works of Giotto. When no trustworthy records exist, we conceive this task to be of singular difficulty, owing to the differences of execution universally existing between the large and small works of the painter. The portrait of Dante in the chapel of the Podesta is proved by Dante's exile, in 1302, to have been painted before Giotto was six and twenty; yet we remember no head in any of his works which can be compared with it ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... never been a member of either house of Congress. But if his form in marble, or his portrait upon canvas, were placed within these walls, a suitable inscription for it would be that of the statue of Moliere in the hall of the French Academy: 'Nothing was wanting to his glory; ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... a portrait of human depravity as the gloomiest misanthrope could wish for. But it has much wider claims on public attention than the gratification of the misanthropic few who mope in corners or stalk up and down leafless and almost solitary walks during ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XII, No. 347, Saturday, December 20, 1828. • Various

... institutions and mercantile customs. Judging by the sequel she was interested, but one would not have been sure of it beforehand. As regards her own talk, Newman was very sure himself that she herself enjoyed it: this was as a sort of amendment to the portrait that Mrs. Tristram had drawn of her. He discovered that she had naturally an abundance of gayety. He had been right at first in saying she was shy; her shyness, in a woman whose circumstances and tranquil beauty afforded every facility ...
— The American • Henry James

... just waited till he had smashed the picture in the face, knocked the pretty lady's portrait to the floor and walked on it as he strode out to his revolution. Incidentally he trod on little Sister's hand, and she sent up a caterwaul. Her little brother howled in duet. ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... as well as of mind and heart, and not less distinguished for her sound sense and good manners than for her cheerful temper and excellent housewifery." Her likeness is thus drawn, and all that we have read elsewhere concerning her confirms the truth of the portrait. Williamson says that ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie

... appears equally strange and suspicious to them, it cannot be wondered if they often mistake the meaning of European customs and actions. For example, when Major Mitchell was desirous of taking the portrait of a native in Eastern Australia, the terror and suspicion of the poor creature, at being required to stand steadily before the artist were such, that, notwithstanding the power of disguising fear, so remarkable in the savage race, the stout heart of Cambo was overcome, and beat visibly; ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... regret that there is no portrait of the second as of the first Mrs. Judson. Her soft blue eyes, her mild aspect, her lovely face and elegant form, have never been delineated on canvass. They must soon pass away from the memory even of her children, ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart

... the first and only time I see you, your likeness was took on my hart in much quicker time and brighter colours than ever a likeness was took by the profeel macheen (wich p'raps you may have heerd on Mary my dear) altho it DOES finish a portrait and put the frame and glass on complete, with a hook at the end to hang it up by, and all in two minutes ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... 1709 we find Lebens und Liebes-Geschichte des Koeniglichen Sclaven Oroonoko in West-Indien, a German translation published at Hamburg, with a portrait of 'Die ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... the pride and pet of Bath, got ready to announce her marriage, she did it by simply changing the inscription beneath a Romney portrait that hung in the anteroom of the artist's studio, marking out the words "Miss Linlay," and writing over it, "Mrs. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard

... "He's been cutting your ladyship's portrait into strips and burning 'em in the study fire. It was dreadful to see him, so intent like and quiet. I saw him put his hand right into the flame once, and he didn't seem to know. And he came in in one of his black moods with his hunting-crop ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell

... Grand Duke loved so fondly as to take it about with him wherever he travelled is only a little sweeter than the rest. It is a strange fact that it was not by painting Madonnas at all the master obtained his inspiration. He painted the portrait of a lady, which is still seen in the Pitti Palace, from whose face he drew the lacking halo of awe and sublimity. He idealized this woman's face, and the San Sisto came to satisfy all one can imagine about the Madonna. But the face of Christ! Who shall paint it ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... of office extending over three years. He was a strenuous advocate of reform, especially in the teaching of sciences, and supported the claims of modern languages to a place in the curriculum. A marble bust of him stands in the public library and his portrait hangs in the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... meditating a similar course, even whilst reading this story, or may be at issue with your parents, because their experience shows them a future which your inexperience cannot show you! Pause and think that Netta is no fictitious character, her story no mere creation of an author's brain, but the portrait and history of one out of hundreds of wilful daughters brought to shame and grief, and bringing all belonging to them to shame and grief by an unblessed ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... a fine private collection at St. Germain, one or two admirable single figures of David, full of life, truth, and gayety. The color is not good, but all the rest excellent; and one of these so much-lauded pictures is the portrait of a washer-woman. "Pope Pius," at the Louvre, is as bad in color as remarkable for its vigor and look of life. The man had a genius for painting portraits and common life, but must attempt the heroic;—failed signally; and what is worse, carried a whole ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... luxuriously, and descending from the platform, joined her and gazed with evident interest at his portrait. He peered in unconscious but faithful imitation of her own critical attitude, his head slanted at the same angle as hers. "It's coming on," he announced solemnly, and Craven guessed from the girl's laugh that it was a repetition of some ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... that man's misdeeds, amplified and dramatized by the indignant eloquence of this historian, oppressed me with astonishment. If a poet had drawn such a portrait, I should have been prone to suspect the soundness of his judgment. Till now I had imagined that no character was uniform and unmixed, and my theory of the passions did not enable me to account for a propensity gratified merely by ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown

... Acland was sufficiently recovered to be able to travel he returned with his wife to England, where the story of Lady Harriet's bravery and devotion was already well-known. A portrait of her, in which she is depicted standing in the boat holding aloft a white handkerchief, was exhibited in the Royal Academy and engraved. Sir Joshua Reynolds also painted a portrait ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore

... Newton.—There is a very stiff Indian-ink copy of a portrait in the Sutherland Illustrated Clarendon, in the Bodleian Library, the original of which I should be glad to trace. It is described in the Catalogue to be "by Bulfinch," {529} which is probably a mistake. It ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 187, May 28, 1853 • Various

... ask the honor to show to you Madame Courtelyou's portrait of myself? It is called 'The Glorification of Imbecility,'" he said as he proffered his arm ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard

... as "a sincere Believer." Nevertheless, he was immensely attracted by the philosopher's Study of Sociology, and little Eloquent was made to learn and repeat many long bits from that dispassionate work. There was no portrait of Mr Herbert Spencer hanging upon the walls; he was not a living force, a real presence, like Mr Gladstone or Mr Bright; he spake not with the words of "a great soul greatly stirred"; yet there was something in his polished and logical sentences that gave Eloquent a doubtless ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker

... movement that runs through your whole being when you come face to face with some great Rembrandt portrait. How much the man knew who made it, who saw it unmade! Or that Bellini's Pope we used to watch, whose penetrating smile taught us about life. And the greater Titian, the man with a glove, that looks at you like a live soul, one whom a man created ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick

... were represented by a Raphael Madonna, a Virgin by Leonardo da Vinci, a nymph by Correggio, a woman by Titian, an adoration of the Magi by Veronese, an assumption of the Virgin by Murillo, a Holbein portrait, a monk by Velazquez, a martyr by Ribera, a village fair by Rubens, two Flemish landscapes by Teniers, three little genre paintings by Gerard Dow, Metsu, and Paul Potter, two canvases by Gericault and Prud'hon, plus seascapes by Backhuysen and Vernet. Among the ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... the kind heart. Don't ever omit the kind heart, Joe, in your description of him, else you'll only have painted half the portrait." ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne

... London, A.D. 1640, which has a Gidding embroidered cover. The design is a simple floral pattern worked in fine close stitches on white silk, with a foundation of coarse canvas or holland, which was perhaps glued on to the original boards. He has also a portrait of Charles I. made in the same kind of stitch on a satin ground, but it is not certain whether this was worked at Gidding or not. A great deal of needlework of that date is wrongly attributed to ...
— Little Gidding and its inmates in the Time of King Charles I. - with an account of the Harmonies • J. E. Acland

... as if knowing that the painter was to blame rather than his servant, turned to him, and dashed a quantity of water from his trunk over the paper on which the painter was sketching his distorted portrait. ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst

... of the imagination, which can draw from a nature ignoble, and altogether earthly, nourishment for dreams so sweet and so sunny! Lucia's fancy had made for her a picture, such as most girls make for themselves once in their lives, and the portrait was as unfaithful as the original himself could have desired. Mr. Percy had become almost a daily visitor at the Cottage. Attracted by Lucia's beauty, he came, as he would have said, had he spoken frankly, to amuse himself ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill

... immobile light entered through the high windows of the hall, outside of which snow glided and fell lingeringly on the ground. Between the windows hung a large portrait of the Czar in a massive frame of glaring gilt. Straight, austere folds of the heavy crimson window drapery dropped over either side of it. Before the portrait, across almost the entire breadth of the hall, stretched the table covered with green cloth. To the right of the wall, behind the ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... velvet jackets, to cigarettes, to loose shirt-collars, to looking a little dishevelled. His features, which were fine, but not perfectly regular, are fairly enough represented in his portraits; but no portrait that I have seen gives any idea of his expression. There were so many things in it, and they chased each other in and out of his face. I have seen people who were grave and gay in quick alternation; ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James

... right, also half open, led the investigator further. Here the floor shook ominously under foot, suggesting rotten beams and unsteady sills. The minister walked cautiously, noting in passing a portrait defaced with cobwebs over the marble mantelpiece and the great circular window opening upon an expanse of tangled grass and weeds, through which the sun streamed hot and yellow. Voices came from an adjoining room; he could hear Deacon Whittle's ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley

... curious. I own it. I must see what we have unearthed here. Won't you ask the Colonel to show us his private portrait gallery? He will do anything for ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various

... generous Mr. Vorster made what he was pleased to call 'presents' to the members—American spiders, Cape carts, gold watches, shares in the Company to be floated, and sums in cash—were the trifles by which Mr. Vorster won his way to favour. He placated the President by presenting to the Volksraad a portrait of his Honour, executed by the late Mr. Schroeder, South Africa's one artist. The picture cost L600. The affair was a notorious and shameless matter of bribery and the only profit which the country gained from ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... died when her third son was born, which event took place ten years after the birth of her second, whom she had lost through scarlet fever. James Hubert John Fergus Saltyre never heard much of her, and barely knew of her past existence because in the picture gallery he had seen a portrait of a tall, thin, fretful-looking young lady, with light ringlets, and pearls round her neck. She had not attracted him as a child, and the fact that he gathered that she had been his mother left him entirely unmoved. She was not a loveable-looking person, ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... representation is true to fact which dips its pencil only in light and flings no shadows on the canvas. There is no depth in a Chinese picture, because there is no shade. It is the wrinkles and marks of tear and wear that make the expression in a man's portrait. 'Life's sternest painter "is" its best.' The gloomy thoughts which are charged against Scripture are the true thoughts about man and the world as man has made it. Not, indeed, that life needs to be so, but that by reason of our own evil and departure ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... was the more gratifying because discriminating. Of course he gave the due meed of panegyric to the female heads, by which the artist had become so renowned. Lionel took his kinsman aside, and, with a mournful expression of face, showed him the portrait by which, all those varying ideals had been suggested—the ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... like himself than Louise in certain superficial qualities, though in an essential nobleness and singleness, which consisted with a great deal of feminine sinuosity and subtlety, she remained a portrait of Louise. He was doubtful whether the mingling of characteristics would not end in unreality, but she was sure it would not; she said he was so much like a woman in the traits he had borrowed from himself that Salome would be all the truer for being like him; or, ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... so overcome by the consciousness of his own presumption and insignificance, that it began to look as if he was hardly likely to penetrate into the studio of the painter, to whom we owe the wonderful portrait of Henri IV. But fate was propitious; an old man came up the staircase. From the quaint costume of this newcomer, his collar of magnificent lace, and a certain serene gravity in his bearing, the first arrival thought that this personage must be either a patron or ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac

... which she loathed, was well forgotten, she was in full fairy-land again, figuring generally as the trusted friend and companion of the Princess of Wales—of that beautiful Alexandra, the top and model of English society whose portrait in the window of the little stationer's shop at Marswell—the small country town near Cliff House—had attracted the child's attention once, on a dreary walk, and had ever since governed her dreams. Marcella had ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... sex came up, he laid down the principle that to deceive women, and to carry on several intrigues at once, should be the occupation of those young men who were so misguided as to wish to meddle in the affairs of the State. It is sad to have to sketch so hackneyed a portrait, for has it not figured everywhere and become, literally, as threadbare as that of a grenadier of the Empire? But the vidame had an influence on Monsieur de Maulincour's destiny which obliges us to preserve ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... about to break and bury the grey halls, the verdant Campus and the lovely secluded corner of brookside park. It owes its foundation to a public-spirited gentleman merchant of other days, the Honorable James McGill, whose portrait, in queue and ruffles, is brought forth in state at Founder's Festival, and who in the days of the Honorable Hudson's Bay Co.'s prime, stored his merchandize in the stout old blue warehouses[D] by ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... two other grave discussions In the great divine's career. Dr. Rice is still devoting His enfeebled voice and gesture To the Gospel proclamation; Furrowed brow and locks of silver Give the glory of religion, In a portrait true and tender, Speaking fluent words and holy, Telling still the "old, old story." Every prominent position, In the gift of flock or pastor, Has been his to grace and honor, In the field ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... to him. Her soft eyes were, indeed, of those that quicken the hearts of men. It is doubtful if there were, in all the world, a lovelier thing than that wild flower of girlhood up there in the hills. She was no dream of romance, dear reader. In one of the public buildings of a certain capital her portrait has been hanging these forty years, and wins, from all who pass it, the homage of a long look. But Trove said, often, that she was never quite so lovely as that day she stood calling the cows—her shapely, brown face aglow with the light of youth, her dark hair curling ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller

... we must repeatedly affirm that important as is the problem as to the human ideal set forth in Christ, the divine ideal set forth in him is more significant as explaining the hold of the Bible on men. Is it not sufficient for us to behold a lofty human ideal in the portrait of Christ without such emphasis on this ideal as also a revelation of the divine character? The answer depends upon what we are most interested in. If we care most for a perfect and symmetrical human life, we ...
— Understanding the Scriptures • Francis McConnell

... Johnny Spencer showed his next neighbor, in the back of his Colburn's Arithmetic, an imaginary portrait of their district hero, which caused them both to chuckle derisively. The Honorable Mr. Laneway figured on the flyleaf as an extremely cross-eyed person, with strangely crooked legs and arms and a terrific expression. He was outlined with ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... everlasting childhood by the warning of her sad devotion. Faint shadows of gigantic tasks to be conquered when the hill was surmounted swam through her mind. And somewhat whimsically associated with these, a portrait of the learned Hooker occurred vividly to her imagination,—his face disfigured through his devotion to sedentary pursuits. Involuntarily she smoothed her soft cheek with her little hand. It was still round and velvet as an August peach. Nevertheless ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various

... permission to go all over it. Inside, no doubt they admired the rows of clean white beds, some of them quite little cots, others big enough for almost full-grown bouncing lasses; they stood with hushed breath before his portrait in the refectory hall or his bust on the stairs; and perhaps they patted the cheeks of some pretty inmate and asked if, when saying her prayers, she always included the name of the patron saint. On high occasions clergymen and bishops came, there ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... common, or Virginian, potato was introduced by Raleigh in 1586, and Lyte, who wrote in that year, does not mention the plant; but Gerarde, who published the first edition of his Herbal in 1597, gave a portrait of himself with a ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor

... striking physical resemblance, spiritual likeness, and similarity of mission frequently seen between persons in one age and those in a former age. Columbus was the modern Jason sailing after the Golden Fleece of a New World. Glancing along the portrait gallery of some ancient family, one is sometimes startled to observe a face, extinct for several generations, suddenly confronting him again with all its features in some distant descendant. A peculiarity of conformation, a remarkable trait ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... house, and sat down in the hall. Cook smiled at the easy fulfillment of his task. Directly in front of the door, set in a deep panel, was the portrait of the first President. On the right in a smaller panel hung the sword which Frederick the Great had given him. On the other side, the pistols from the hands of Lafayette. A tiny, gold plate, delicately engraved, ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon

... great portraits of modern times constitute a very short list, like the great poems or histories, and it is the same with engravings as with pictures. Sir Joshua Reynolds, explaining the difference between an historical painter and a portrait-painter, remarks that the former "paints men in general, a portrait-painter a particular man, and consequently a defective model."[1] A portrait, therefore, may be an accurate presentment of ...
— The Best Portraits in Engraving • Charles Sumner

... and succeeded. At least, Jacobus Kirchelheimer said so—and he ought to know, for he was a first-rate fellow, and sent me over and above the price agreed upon, a dozen bottles of Rudesheimer. A suspicion seemed indeed to haunt his mind that the portrait resembled himself much more than it did the late Herr Kirchelheimer, pere,—but he speedily found ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... passed away, and at length he thought he might attempt the portrait of his little dog, "Pink," and, if he could succeed to his satisfaction, he determined that he would carry it home and surprise his mother with it. After much patient labor he finished his task, and showed the sketch first of all to his friend ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... 'A Portrait,' by W. H. Furness, jr., strikes us as a picture carefully disfigured. The part in the hair is singularly continued in the part between the wings of the golden butterfly ornamenting the head, the eyes are just ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... by your portrait," ses the 'ousekeeper. "Come in. 'Ave you 'ad a pleasant v'y'ge? Wipe ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs

... extinction of the elder line of the house of Orleans, the crown came to him as the nearest heir of Louis the Twelfth.[212] He was tall, but well proportioned, of a fair complexion, with a body capable of enduring without difficulty great exposure and fatigue. In an extant portrait, taken five years later, he is delineated with long hair and scanty beard. The drooping lids give to his eyes a languid expression, while the length of his nose, which earned him the sobriquet of "le ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... himself home. The word was used to denote the house in which he and his father lived. A portrait of his mother hung over the parlor stove. It was a chalk drawing from a photograph, crudely done, but beautiful by reason of the subject. The face was young and very round, the forehead beautifully low and broad ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... Christmas party at the house of Fourteenth Street neighbours—they come back to me as "the Beans": who and what and whence and whither the kindly Beans?—where I admired over the chimney piece the full-length portrait of a lady seated on the ground in a Turkish dress, with hair flowing loose from a cap which was not as the caps of ladies known to me, and I think with a tambourine, who was somehow identified to my enquiring mind as the wife of ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... in my mind to write a history of Georgetown. Several have been written, but I do want, very, very much, to paint a portrait of this dear old town of my birth where my parents, my grandparents, great-grandfathers and one great-great-grandfather lived, and which I ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker

... Scottish portrait and historical painter, born at Alloa; illustrated Ramsay's "Gentle Shepherd"; his greatest work is the "Origin of Painting," now in the National Gallery at ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... vagabond and ultimately a Pacific Islander. The more credit then to Mr. MAUGHAM that he does quite definitely make us accept the fellow at his valuation. He owes this, perhaps, to the unsparing realism of the portrait. Heartless, utterly egotistical, without conscience or scruple or a single redeeming feature beyond the one consuming purpose of his art, Strickland is alive as few figures in recent fiction have been; a genuinely great though repellent personality—a man whom ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various

... however, was not a happy one. Mr Acklom demanded far larger settlements than Mr Knox was in a position to agree to; and in December of the same year all idea of the marriage was abandoned. Tom Knox returned to Miss Acklom her picture which she had bestowed upon him, and she sent back to him the portrait and presents which he had given her; while neither of them appear to have regretted regaining ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)

... window the silhouette of Spurling loomed up, with the drifting dimness of the starlight for background, and the square of surrounding darkness for a frame of sombre plush; he seemed a man-portrait whom some painter had condemned forever to motionlessness and silence with the magic of his brush, and had nailed on a stretcher, and ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson

... would be the dangerous time, if danger there was, and he decided not to sleep. Lying awake wasn't, after all, very difficult, for the portrait of the girl was painted on Roger's mind. He saw things in that portrait he'd seen but subconsciously in the original. He thought that her beauty was of the type which would shine like the moon, set off with wonderful ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... was not designed as a biography, but is rather a portrait. And, to speak more carefully still, it is not so much this, as my conception of what a portrait of Hawthorne should be. For I cannot write with the authority of one who had known him and had been formally intrusted with the task ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... Newfoundland dog is no more, but his portrait hangs over the mantle-piece in the little parlour. Mrs Beazeley, the housekeeper, has become inert and querulous from rheumatism and the burden of added years. A little girl, daughter of Robinson, the fisherman has been called in to perform ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... perhaps advisable to give "two or three lines" concerning his age, appearance, and position in life. He would have responded to such a request we imagine as follows, and thus we can dispense with drawing his portrait from a moral and physical point ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne

... the high altar of the Franciscans' church, under a vault of Arnolfo's building, with at least some of Giotto's colour on it still fresh; and in front of you, over the little altar, is the only reportedly authentic portrait of St. Francis, taken from life by Giotto's master. Yet I can hardly blame my two English friends for never looking in. Except in the early morning light, not one touch of all this art can be seen. And in any ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin

... being submitted to such treatment! It is difficult to emphasize it by a parallel. One might ask what would be the result if a painter were to attempt to convert a purely imaginative picture into a portrait, and, in addition to altering the face and the lines of the figures, were to put in a number of accessories to please the patron's taste, and also to accept suggestions from the sitter as to ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"

... surroundings, and so contribute towards producing a complete picture which cannot fail to interest and delight the thousands at home and abroad, to whom your name is as a household word, and who will be delighted to possess a portrait of one whose works have given them so much pleasure, and to obtain a closer and more intimate acquaintance with the modus operandi pursued by one of their ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various

... in her chamber Margaret of Valois, Queen of Navarre, the sister of the dying king. Her beautiful head was reclined languidly against the tapestry of the wall, the dark colours of which formed an admirable background to that brilliant and bejewelled portrait. A lute, of the fashion of the day, lay upon her lap; music, dresses, scraps of poetry in her own handwriting, caskets with jewellery, manuscripts, and illuminated volumes, were littered in various parts ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... instead of letting me into the Pompeiian dining-room crossed the hall to another door not at all in the Pompeiian style (more Louis XV rather—that Villa was like a Salade Russe of styles) and introduced me into a big, light room full of very modern furniture. The portrait en pied of an officer in a sky-blue uniform hung on the end wall. The officer had a small head, a black beard cut square, a robust body, and leaned with gauntleted hands on the simple hilt of a straight sword. That striking picture dominated a massive mahogany desk, and, in front ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... line of chairs, upon one of which stood Miss Liz. She had drawn the musty covering from an overhanging portrait—her dead sister—and to this she was murmuring. Her black silk dress and lace kerchief seemed to make her a part of the gallery; and her thin hand resting on the frame, with its forefinger unconsciously pointing upward, was as frail and wax-like as that other hand into which ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris

... actual objects or events; it is concerned only with producing the effect of emotional congruity between incidents, objects, forms, or sounds. A great novel does not pretend to be a literal transcript of experience, nor a portrait of an actual person. When random mental activity is thus controlled, it is "imagination," in the popular sense, the sense in which poets, painters, and dramatists are called ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... ultimatum to Courtland. Her little imperial head sat on her lovely shoulders royally, her attitude was perfect grace. Her spirited face with its dark eyes and lashes, its setting of blue-black hair, was fascinating in its exquisite modeling. She looked like a proud young cameo standing for her portrait. But her words shot through Courtland's heart like icy swords dividing his soul from ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... to be favoured with an interview with the veteran violinist, Doctor Selle, of Richmond. This gentleman, now well on in his eighties, knew John Dodd most intimately, and gave me many interesting details about him. I have endeavoured to obtain a portrait of Dodd, but there does not seem to be anything of the sort in existence. However, Dr. Selle gave me a graphic description of his personal appearance. In stature he was short and of a shuffling gait. As he affected nether garments of extreme brevity, very broad-brimmed hats, ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George

... the President of the Royal Academy painted a very striking portrait of Jane Porter, as "Miranda," and Harlowe painted her in the canoness dress of the order of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... livelihood when forced by extreme poverty to break off his university studies, again stood him in good stead in his position at Dresden. True, he complained even more than his critics that he had been kept from a regular and systematic study of this art, yet his extraordinary aptitude, for portrait painting in particular, secured him such important commissions that he unfortunately exhausted his strength prematurely by his twofold exertions as painter and actor. Once, when he was invited to Munich to ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... full moon, but that also no other novel shows so many autobiographical features. The most recent publisher of this tale, Heinrich Borcherdt, gives this explanation: "One can recognize without much trouble in the portrait of the count with his well-trimmed beard the poet himself, who at that time tended to great seriousness and to melancholy. For this very reason the cheerfulness, gaiety and unrestrained naturalness of his bride Emilie worked ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger

... Scott—This Portrait is taken from Chantrey's Bust now at Abbotsford, which, according to Lockhart, "Alone Preserves for Posterity the Expression most fondly Remembered by All who Ever Mingled in ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch

... II. was the dominion of French fashions. In some respects the taste was a little lighter, but the moral effect of dress, and which no doubt it has, was much worse. The dress was very inflammatory; and the nudity of the beauties of the portrait-painter, Sir Peter Lely, has been observed. The queen of Charles II. exposed her breast and shoulders without even the gloss of the lightest gauze; and the tucker, instead of standing up on her bosom, is with licentious boldness turned down, and lies ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... a long, well-shaped, and somewhat delicate nose, which was almost in line with his forehead, an eye prominent and larger than that of most Egyptians, a shortish upper lip, a resolute mouth with rather over-full lips, and a rounded, slightly retreating chin. The expression of his portrait statues is grave and serious, but lacks strength and determination. Indeed, there is something about the whole countenance that is a little womanish, though his character certainly presents no appearance of effeminacy. ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... by Lord Nithsdale, arrived in the courtyard of the Hotel de Varennes. Madame de Bourke was taking with her all the paraphernalia of an ambassador—a service of plate, in a huge chest stowed under the seat, a portrait of Philip V., in a gold frame set with diamonds, being included among her jewellery—and Lord Nithsdale, standing by, could not but drily remark, 'Yonder is more than ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge

... was left at last with a slim packet of letters and the girl's portrait. She struck me as beautiful—I mean she had a beautiful expression. I know that the sunlight can be made to lie too, yet one felt that no manipulation of light and pose could have conveyed the delicate shade of truthfulness upon those features. She seemed ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad

... marquis of Argyle, the proto-martyr to religion since the reformation from popery, the true portrait of whose character cannot be (a historian[102] says I dare not) drawn. His enemies themselves will allow him to have been a person of extraordinary piety, remarkable wisdom and prudence, great gravity and authority, and singular usefulness. He was the head of ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... She could not become Mrs. Otway, being already Mrs. Somebody-else. Her death, I fear, was a great misfortune to our parent. I have gathered that they suited each other—fate, you know, plays these little tricks. Your mother, I am sure, was a most charming and admirable woman—I remember her portrait. A l'heure qu'il est, no doubt, it has to be kept out of sight. She had, I am given to understand, a trilling capital of her own, and this was ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... faithful to the traditions of this great poet did the austere Michael Angelo do reverence to the virtues of Vittoria Colonna. Thus did the lofty Corneille present in his Pauline a divine model of the love which inspires great deeds and accompanies great virtues. Thus did Shakspeare, in his portrait of Portia, show the blended generosity and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord

... for something to destroy. Suddenly, looking at the lady with the mustaches, the young fellow pulled out his revolver, and said: "You shall not see it." And without leaving his seat he aimed, and with two successive bullets cut out both the eyes of the portrait. ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant

... the portrait-sculpture of the Hellenistic period I have selected the seated statue of Posidippus (Fig. 175), an Athenian dramatist of the so-called New Comedy, who flourished in the early part of the third century. The preservation of the statue is extraordinary; ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell

... the doctor left the car and bought a paper. As he had expected the portrait and speech of the Harvester were featured. The reporters had been gracious. They had done all that was just to a great event, and allowed themselves some latitude. He immediately mailed the paper to the Girl, and ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter

... with the narrowness and meanness of the wainscotted passage. But the library, into which he was shown by an elderly respectable looking man-servant, was a complete contrast to these unpromising appearances. It was a well-proportioned room, hung with a portrait or two of Scottish characters of eminence, by Jamieson, the Caledonian Vandyke, and surrounded with books, the best editions of the best authors, and, in particular, ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... makes great-grandpapa wink," said Angelica looking up at a portrait. "And Venus has put ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... (Edward VI.). In 1540 Cromwell arranged another union with the plainest woman in Europe, Anne of Cleves; which proved so distasteful to Henry that he speedily divorced her, and in resentment at Cromwell's having entrapped him, by a flattering portrait drawn by Holbein, the Minister came under his displeasure, which at that time meant death. He was beheaded in 1540, and in that same year occurred the King's marriage with Katharine Howard, who one year later met same fate as ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele

... Chichikov himself is now generally regarded as a universal character. We find an American professor, William Lyon Phelps [1], of Yale, holding the opinion that "no one can travel far in America without meeting scores of Chichikovs; indeed, he is an accurate portrait of the American promoter, of the successful commercial traveller whose success depends entirely not on the real value and usefulness of his stock-in-trade, but on his knowledge of human nature and of the persuasive ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... brought about the realization of his dreams. The movement towards female education as described in another chapter must ever be placed to the credit of this great woman. From the time she came from behind the screen, and allowed her portrait to be painted, the freedom of woman ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland



Words linked to "Portrait" :   portray, depiction, characterization, likeness, delineation, picture, half-length, portrayal, word-painting, word picture, semblance, characterisation



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org