Portrait Paintings
2010s Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Mixed Media, Acrylic
2010s Portrait Paintings
Oil, Board
1960s Romantic Portrait Paintings
Mixed Media, Gouache, Pencil, Graphite
2010s Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Charcoal, Acrylic
2010s Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Oil Pastel, Oil
2010s Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Acrylic, Watercolor, Pencil
1960s Surrealist Portrait Paintings
Oil, Board
2010s Modern Portrait Paintings
Silver, Gold Leaf
2010s Portrait Paintings
Oil
2010s Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Acrylic Polymer, Oil, Acrylic
2010s Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Oil, Wood Panel
2010s Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Acrylic
2010s Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Oil
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Linen, Oil, Acrylic, Canvas
21st Century and Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Paper, Mixed Media
2010s Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Paper, India Ink
1960s Post-Impressionist Portrait Paintings
Watercolor, Gouache, Board, Pencil
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Paint, Mixed Media
2010s Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Oil
1960s Feminist Portrait Paintings
Oil, Board
21st Century and Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Paper, Mixed Media
2010s Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Acrylic
2010s Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Linen, Oil
2010s Byzantine Portrait Paintings
Gold Leaf
2010s Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Oil, Acrylic
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Acrylic
2010s Expressionist Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Oil
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Paint, Mixed Media
2010s Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Oil
2010s Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Oil, Wood Panel
2010s Conceptual Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Oil
2010s Cubist Portrait Paintings
Paper, Acrylic, Gouache
2010s Outsider Art Portrait Paintings
Paper, Acrylic
21st Century and Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Oil
2010s Expressionist Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Oil
1960s American Realist Portrait Paintings
Casein, Board
2010s Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Acrylic, Wood Panel
2010s Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Paper, Oil Pastel, Oil
2010s Conceptual Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Spray Paint, Acrylic
2010s Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Paper, Oil Pastel, Oil
2010s Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Paper, Oil Pastel, Oil
2010s Pop Art Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Oil
2010s Expressionist Portrait Paintings
Paper, Charcoal, Oil Pastel
2010s Abstract Portrait Paintings
Mixed Media
2010s Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Paper, Oil Pastel, Oil
2010s Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Acrylic
2010s Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Acrylic
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Oil
2010s New Media Portrait Paintings
Steel
2010s Romantic Portrait Paintings
Engraving, Drypoint, Lithograph
2010s Outsider Art Portrait Paintings
Paper, Acrylic
2010s Portrait Paintings
Enamel
2010s Portrait Paintings
Enamel
21st Century and Contemporary Modern Portrait Paintings
Oil
2010s Pop Art Portrait Paintings
Oil
2010s Portrait Paintings
Acrylic
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Oil
2010s Street Art Portrait Paintings
Canvas, Ink, Mixed Media, Acrylic
Shop Antique and Vintage Portrait Paintings
An elegant and sophisticated decorative touch in any living space, portrait paintings have remained popular throughout the years and are widely loved pieces of art for display in many homes today.
Portrait paintings are at least as old as ancient Egypt, where realistic, lifelike depictions of the recently deceased — commonly known as “mummy portraits” — were painted on wooden panels and affixed to mummies as part of the burial tradition.
For centuries, painters have used portraiture as a means of expressing a subject’s nobility, societal status and authority. Portraits were given as gifts in Renaissance Europe, and a portrait artist might have been commissioned to help mark a significant occasion such as a wedding or a promotion to high office. Prior to the advent of photography, which eventually replaced painted portraits as a quicker and more efficient way of capturing a person’s essence, the subject of a portrait had to sit for hours until the painter had finished. And during the 18th century in particular, if an artist commissioned for a portrait struggled with how to adequately memorialize and capture a subject’s likeness, sometimes a portrait painting wasn’t completed for up to a year.
Whether it’s part of the gallery-style approach to your living-room or dining-room walls or merely inspiration as you devise an eye-grabbing color scheme in your home, a portrait painting is a timeless decorative object for any interior. A landscape painting or sculpture might give you the kind of insight into a specific region of the world or a different culture that you can ascertain only through art. Similarly, when you take the time to learn about the subject of a portrait painting that you bring into your home — the sitter’s history, the relationship between the sitter and the artist should one exist, the story of how the portrait came to be — that work can become intensely personal in addition to its place as an object for an art-hungry corner of your apartment or house.
On 1stDibs, visit a vast collection of famous portrait paintings or works by emerging artists. Search by medium to find the right portrait paintings for your home in oil paint, synthetic resin paint and more. Find portrait paintings in a variety of styles, too, including contemporary, Impressionist and Pop art, or search by artist to find unique works created by painters such as Mark Beard, Steve Kaufman and Montse Valdés.
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In Christopher Spitzmiller’s New York Homes, His Love of Dogs Is on Full Display
The ceramist, designer and gentleman farmer tells us about the collection of antique dog art he has spread across a New York City apartment and a Greek Revival farmhouse in the Hudson Valley.
This Wiener Werkstätte Master Made Everything into Art
Koloman Moser smashed the conservative conventions of art and design in fin-de-siècle Vienna. On the 100th anniversary of his death, the Austrian designer is being celebrated for his radically modern creations.
A Rare Q&A with American Legend Alex Katz
On the eve of a new exhibition just north of New York City, the nonagenarian contemporary-art icon talked with ‘Introspective’ about his long and ongoing career, the development of his signature style and his rather malleable definition of realism.