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Antique Portrait Paintings

About this collection

Antique portrait painting is the art of depicting a real person, from the court portraits of the Grand Siècle and the elegance of the Rococo to the Salon portraiture of the 19th century.

Some sitters wore the orders of a court. Others were officers and ladies whose names were never written down, and many of their portraits are signed and still in gilded frames. A dark, dignified portrait holds its place in a study, a library or an entryway. To see how the 18th century French portrait was built, read our guide to Rigaud, Tocqué and the French Rococo Portrait.

-10%Antique portrait of a lady with a pink ribbon hat, 18th century French oil on canvas, gilt frame

French School, 18th century

Lady in a Lace Cap
$4,900$4,400
Signed 1839 French portrait of a young hunter standing with his gun and his pointing dog, oil on canvas in a period gilt frame

Charles Suan (1810-1879)

The Hunter and His Dog, 1839
$4,900Signed
A gentleman with his gun and dog in a landscape, signed and dated 1839 by Charles Suan, oil on canvas in a period gilt frame

Charles Suan (1810-1879)

Gentleman with Gun and Dog, 1839
$4,900Signed
Portrait of a young Austrian officer in white uniform with the Golden Fleece, Austrian school oil on canvas, early 19th century, in a wide gilt frame

Austrian School, early 19th century

Officer with the Golden Fleece
$2,700

Guides · before you buy

Emperors, Officers and the Symbols They WoreA double-headed eagle, a golden ram on a ribbon, a white coat.Read the guideCollecting 18th-Century French PortraitsEveryone who mattered in eighteenth-century France needed to be painted, and the great portraitists ran workshops to meet the demand.Read the guide
Habsburg portrait of a lady with jeweled tiara and red shawl, early 19th century oil in gilt frame

Austrian School, early 19th century

Lady with a Jeweled Tiara, 1800s
$3,400
19th century French oil portrait of a woman with blue flowers in her hair, gilt oval frame

French School, 19th century

Woman with Blue Flowers, 1857
$2,730Signed
Portrait of a gentleman in a powdered wig, French School oil on canvas, late 18th century, sold unframed

French School, late 18th century

Gentleman in a Powdered Wig
$3,300
Portrait of a Habsburg archduke in the white uniform of the Austrian army with the Golden Fleece and the Maria Theresa star, Austrian school circa 1800, in a gilt frame

Austrian School, circa 1800

Archduke in White Uniform
$3,200
 The school Rococo1715 to 1789Watteau's fêtes galantes, the powdered portraits of Nattier and Tocqué.Discover the school
Signed oil study by Marcellin Desboutin of a laughing boy in a working shirt, in a gilt wood frame

Marcellin Desboutin (1823-1902)

Laughing Boy
$4,900Signed
Jules-Alexandre Grün portrait of a young sitter in a wide white collar, signed oil on canvas in a gilt frame with black frieze

Jules-Alexandre Grün (1868-1938)

Portrait in a Sailor Collar
$1,900Signed
Antique 18th century French portrait of a gentleman with a lace jabot and a pink carnation, oil on canvas in a gilt frame

French School, mid 18th century

Gentleman with a Carnation
$5,800
Signed oval portrait of a young woman in a rose gown with a short strand of pearls, dated 1925, unframed oil on canvas by Max Moreau

Max Moreau (1902-1992)

Young Woman with Pearls
$4,700Signed
Portrait of a gentleman in a red coat with a white stock and lace jabot, oil on canvas, 18th century French school, unframed

French School, 18th century

Gentleman in a Red Coat, 1700s
$2,800
Corchon y Diaque portrait of a woman with a wine-red silk ribbon in her hair, oil on panel in a carved giltwood frame with water leaf ornament

Corchon y Diaque (1853-1925)

Woman in a Wine-Red Silk Cap
$5,700Signed
Portrait of a hussar officer in pale blue dolman with black fur pelisse and a silver breast star, early 19th century Austrian oil on canvas in a period gilt frame

Austrian School, early 19th century

Hussar Officer in Blue, 1800s
$2,900
Portrait of Emperor Joseph II, 19th century Austrian School oil on canvas, in a gilt frame

Austrian School, 19th century

Emperor Joseph II, 1800s
$2,900
Portrait of a young woman with a pearl necklace in a pale blue gauze dress, French School, circa 1840, in a carved gilt frame

French School, circa 1840

Woman with a Pearl Necklace
$5,600
Antique English portrait of a man in a tall black top hat and white stock, oil on canvas in a carved gilt frame

English School, early 19th century

Man in a Top Hat, 1800s
$2,600
A man in a red coat and lace cravat under a long powdered wig, French school, in a carved gilt frame

French School, 18th century

Gentleman in a Red Coat, 1700s
$4,800
Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, after Anthony van Dyck, seated in a ruff and black cloak, 19th century oil on panel

European School, 19th century

Earl of Arundel, after van Dyck
$2,800
Young man in a dark coat and high white cravat against a grey ground, small early nineteenth century French oil portrait in its original gilt bead frame

French School, early 19th century

Young Man in a High Stock
$1,900
Seventeenth century German School portrait of a man in a plain white linen collar against a black ground, oil on panel in a deep gilt frame

German School, 17th century

Man in a White Collar, 1600s
$8,900
Early 19th century officer in a dark green coat with a pale blue sash and silver star, oil on canvas in a moulded gilt frame

Austrian School, early 19th century

Officer with Sash and Star
$2,900
Portrait of a lady in blue-green silk with a pearl necklace, follower of Louis Tocque, 18th century oil on canvas in a gilt frame

French School, 18th century

Lady in Blue-Green Silk, 1700s
$5,700

GalerieClub Fine Art

1,100+

paintings sold since 2017

Poppy Fields, late 1800sSold Poppy Fields, late 1800s Hagar and Ishmael, 1700sSold Hagar and Ishmael, 1700s Penitent Magdalene, 1600sSold Penitent Magdalene, 1600s

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Elsewhere in the gallery

Antique portrait paintings for sale at GalerieClub

Every portrait began as a commission. A family wanted a face kept, a regiment wanted an officer remembered, a court wanted its likeness sent abroad. The antique oil portraits in this collection come out of that long habit, all painted more than a century ago, on canvas or panel, many of them still in gilt frames.

  • Silk, lace and pearls mark the portrait of a lady. A powdered wig, a lace jabot or a high white stock mark the portrait of a gentleman. Clothes date these faces more reliably than style does, since a cap, a collar or the cut of the hair can place a sitter within a decade, and the listings say so when the clothes allow it. Aristocratic sitters hang next to prosperous families whose names were never written down.

  • The century changed the sitter. Powder went out of fashion, and young men posed in dark coats with stocks tied high under the chin, while women sat in pearls with flowers in their hair. Some painters finished these portraits smoothly for the parlour. Others worked quickly from life, in looser oil studies that keep the speed of the sitting.

  • A uniform is a document. Its cut, its facings, its buttons and the star or sash of an order often reveal the army, the rank and the years of service before any inscription does. Each military portrait here is described from the uniform itself, not from a family story passed down with it.

  • A signature changes what can be said, and on a signed antique portrait painting it usually sits in a lower corner, sometimes with a date. Without one, the portrait is given to a school and a period, and after, circle of or follower of mark how close it stands to a known portraitist, as our guide to reading an attribution explains. Most sitters were never named on the canvas. For the period, an unknown sitter is the rule, not a flaw.

  • Most framed portraits keep a gilt frame, carved or moulded, and gilding worn through to the red bole is a sign of age rather than damage. A few older portraits are painted on wood panel. Others come unframed, a plain stretched canvas ready for a frame of the buyer's choosing.