A Sicilian Woman
A Sicilian Woman c1861 by Belgian Painter Jean-François Portaels (1818 – 1895); Oriental style and portrait painter.
This is an alluring portrait of a beautiful young lady that is sitting in a room with her hands folded on her lap holding a wooden rosary; there is a blank picture frame behind her to the left and stone bench below it.
She is wearing an elaborate white cloth headdress round gold earrings with gemstones around the perimeter, a red gemstone necklace, a large blue and green flower that is pinned to the front of her white dress, with triangular lace trim along the edges, just above the flower that has a gold brooch which connects the upper open portion of her dress with two orbs and a pin.
The lower portion of her white dress is accented with thin red stripes that are widely spaced, while the sleeves of the dress are turned out which reveals a red velour lining with gold trim accents; also there is a long wide sash that is tied around her waist and flows down the dress that is accented with silver circles, each that is composed of multiple disc.
Her attire is then completed with a bluish-black and deep red sleeveless cloak, that seems to cover her back and that just drapes over her shoulders at the front.
Photo Retouching Of The Classical Artwork A Sicilian Woman by Jean-François Portaels
This is a remastered digital art old masters reproduction of a public domain image, which is available for purchase as metal, acrylic, posters, rolled canvas print online.
Info Below Derived From Wikipedia.org
Jean-François was born in the Flemish Brabant Belgian municipality Vilvoorde, to the mayor of Vilvoorde a rich brewer; and spent much of his time growing up drawing scenes of his native town.
In 1836 his father sent him to the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels; which was established in 1711 and he studied under the Belgian artist François-Joseph Navez (1787 – 1869), who himself was a student of the famous Neoclassical French painter Jacques-Louis David (1748 – 1825).
Five years later Jean-François journeyed to Paris and enrolled at the French Academy, Ecole des Beaux-Arts to continue his studies; studying in his spare time the old masters in the Louvre, as well as visiting the Paris Salons for inspiration and to research artistic trends in France.
At the time Orientalism was becoming a popular trend in the arts, and this had an influence on Jean-Francois; also at this time he became a student of the historical French painter Paul Delaroche (1797 – 1856).
In 1842 on his return to Belgium he won the Grand Prix de Rome, and the money he made from this win allowed him to travel to Italy; where he visited Venice, Florence and Rome, and then later to Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Judea, Spain, Hungary and Norway.
During this trip he had the ability to paint portraits of some of the prominent individuals at the time, such as the Viceroy of Egypt.
After 5 years Jean returned to Belgium and accepted the appointment as the director of the Academy in the Flemish Municipality of Ghent.
Jean-Francois was a prolific and versatile artist that painted across a broad spectrum of genres, including historical paintings, biblical paintings, portrait paintings, landscape paintings, genre paintings and Orientalist paintings with along with portraiture was his main focus.