Portrait

They represent some of the oldest forms of art in the Middle East and demonstrate that the prehistoric population took great care in burying their ancestors below their homes.

The 28 surviving rather small statues of Gudea, ruler of Lagash in Sumer between c. 2144–2124 BC, show a consistent appearance with some individuality, although it is sometimes disputed that these count as portraits.

But if the definition is extended, the first was by the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten's sculptor Bak, who carved a representation of himself and his wife Taheri c. 1365 BC.

However, it seems likely that self-portraits go back to the cave paintings, the earliest representational art, and literature records several classical examples that are now lost.

The portrait is usually decorated with official colors and symbols such as a flag, presidential stripes, or a coat of arms, belonging to a country, state, or municipality.

Subjects were generally seated against plain backgrounds and lit with the soft light of an overhead window and whatever else could be reflected with mirrors.

William Shew's Daguerreotype Saloon, Roger Fenton's Photographic Van and Mathew Brady's What-is-it?

Augustus Washington moved to Monrovia, Liberia from Hartford, Connecticut and created daguerreotype portraits for many political leaders for the country.

For example, the American author Patricia Cornwell wrote a best-selling 2002 book entitled Portrait of a Killer about the personality, background, and possible motivations of Jack the Ripper, as well as the media coverage of his murders, and the subsequent police investigation of his crimes.

When the subject of the narrative is a historical figure, then the writer is free to create a compelling and dramatic portrait of the person that draws on imaginative invention for verisimilitude.

An example is Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall (2009) which, while acknowledging the work of the historian Mary Robertson for background information, imagines an intimate portrait of Thomas Cromwell and his intense relationship with Henry VIII at a critical time in English history.

Plutarch's Parallel Lives, written in the 2nd century AD, offer a prime example of historical literary portraits, as a source of information about the individuals and their times.