b Pontormo, nr Empoli, 26 May 1494; d Florence, 31 Dec 1556). Italian painter and draughtsman. He was the leading painter in mid-16th-century Florence and one of the most original and extraordinary of Mannerist artists. His eccentric personality, solitary and slow working habits and capricious attitude towards his patrons are described by Vasari; his own diary, which covers the years 1554-6, further reveals a character with neurotic and secretive aspects. Pontormo enjoyed the protection of the Medici family throughout his career but, unlike Agnolo Bronzino and Giorgio Vasari, did not become court painter. His subjective portrait style did not lend itself to the state portrait. He produced few mythological works and after 1540 devoted himself almost exclusively to religious subjects. His drawings, mainly figure studies in red and black chalk, are among the highest expressions of the great Florentine tradition of draughtsmanship; close to 400 survive, forming arguably the most important body of drawings by a Mannerist painter. His highly personal style was much influenced by Michelangelo  Related Paintings of Pontormo, Jacopo :. | The Visitacion | St John the Evangelist | Moses Receiving the Tables | Deposition | Adam and Eve at Work |
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Master of Virgo inter Virgines
Netherlandish Painter, active 1470-1520
Hicks, Thomas
American Painter, 1823-1890 Cousin of Edward Hicks. After being apprenticed (c. 1835-9) in the sign-painting shop of his cousin, he studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia (1839-40) and at the National Academy of Design in New York (1840-44). He then sketched and painted in England, Italy and France before becoming a student of Thomas Couture in Paris (1848-9). On his return to the USA in 1849, he established a studio in New York and quickly became a popular portrait painter, although his portrayals only rarely have enough psychological depth to make them of more than documentary interest. Hamilton Fish (1852; New York, City Hall) is among his stronger works. Hicks also painted genre subjects, such as Musicale: Barber Shop, Trenton Falls (1866; Raleigh, NC Mus. A.), and landscapes, the latter chiefly near Thornwood, his summer residence at Trenton Falls, NY.
Sophie anderson
1823-1903 was a French-born British artist who specialised in genre painting of children and women, typically in rural settings. Her work is loosely associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement. She was the daughter of Charles Gengembre, a Parisian architect, and his English wife. She was largely self-taught, but briefly studied portraiture with Charles de Steuben in Paris in 1843. The family left France for the United States to escape the 1848 revolution, They first lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, then in Manchester, Pennsylvania, where she met and married the British genre artist Walter Anderson. She initially worked in portraiture, including work for the chromolithographers Louis Prang & Co.. In 1854 the Andersons moved to London, where she exhibited her works in the Royal Academy. They returned to New York in 1858, then finally settled in London around 1863. Over the next three decades, her work was widely shown at venues including the Royal Academy, the Society of British Artists and many regional galleries.