The Strawberry Girl by Nils Schillmark

The Strawberry Girl (1782) by Nils Schillmark
Finland Stamp 1,70 Issued 1987
Ateneum Finnish National Gallery Helsinki

Schillmark (1745-1802) became one of the most important portrait painters in Finland after being apprenticed in Stockholm to Pehr Fjellström.   He spent much of his life travelling throughout western and southern Finland, completing portraits for those who afford it.  Schillmark used the Baroque style of portrait painting used by Olof Arenius (1701–66). Gradually, Schillmark developed his own penetrating style of portrait painting.

His subjects are engaged and the completed works look very realistic. He had some unusual flair, as displayed in this portrait, where the girl is dressed in a common fashion, although she was actually a member of the mobility - her calm stare against a slightly threatening landscape - it is realistically but impossible at the same time.

This stamp was issued as one of five works in a series of art from the Ateneum Finnish National Gallery.

Papaflessas by Adam Friedel

Papaflessas, Greek Revolutionary Hero in Maniaki 1by Adam Friedel (1825)
Greece Stamp Issued 1975 

Papaflessas (Grigorios Demetrios Flessas, 1788-1825) was Greek priest and patriot who led a revolution for independence. During the Greek War of Independence Papflessas was Minister of Internal Affairs and Chief of Police, until he was killed during the Battle of Maniaki, in which he led the Greek troops against Egyptian forces led by Ibrahim Pasha. The stamp derives from a plate from a series of twenty-four portraits of figures related to the Greek War of Independence, by the Danish painter Adam Friedel.

Portrait of Lagarova by Stefan Ivanov

Stefan Ivanov by Portrait of Lagarova
Bulgaria Stamp Issued 1971

Stamp was issued within a series of 6 stamps to commemorate the opening of a new art gallery in Bulgaria in 1971.  Stefan Ivanov was born in 1875, being one of 12 siblings in a peasant family.  His early life was quite tragic as six of his brothers and sisters died.  He trained as an artist in Sofia in good art schools and he became famous for sad, melancholic works of women during a very tough time of depression and poverty in the 1920s.  He died in 1951.

Artist Unknown - Girl with Dove

Girl With Dove - Artist Unknown
Poland 90gr Stamp issued 1974
19th Century Painting

This is one of eight stamps depicting children in portrait paintings - issued by the Polish in 1974

Johannes Vermeer - The Lacemaker

Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) - The Lacemaker
Fujeira Stamp Issued 1971
The Louvre, Paris France

Vermeer is one of the most famous Dutch genre painters from the 17th Century.  The majority of his works were completed in his two room home in Delft, as the same interiors are shown many times with different middle-class characters who were individual models for his paintings.  He is also known for his exquisite use of light and colour, which involved the use of very expensive and rare pigments.  Another of his works has been captured in a French stamp issue: Girl with a Pearl Earring.

Alexey Venetsianov - Harvesting

Alexey Venetsianov (1780-1847) -  Harvesting (1827).
Russia USSR Stamp Issued 1980
Summer. 1827. Oil on canvas. The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia

Although Venetsianov did not gain a high profile from the academics in the arts community, he did enjoy relative success as an artist after a public service career from the early 1800s to 1819.  Tsar Nicholas I commissioned him for works.  The artist dies in a horse carriage accident when his carriage plunged down a cliff in 1847.  Another of his works "Oh Father's Dinner" has also been used on USSR stamps.

Pablo Picasso - Mother and Sick Child

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) - Mother and Sick Child (1903)
Maldives Stamp Issued 1974
Painting held at the Barcelona Museum, Spain

This is one of Picasso's earlier works, well before he started to mix up peoples faces.  The Maldives is a beautiful group of tropical islands that are stretched intermittently across the Indian Ocean to the south of India.  As the highest point of the Maldives is only 2 metres above sea level, it is one of the most threatened countries if sea levels do rise.  They also issue stamps on many topics that have no relation to the Maldives as a way of raising revenue for the country. 

Other works by Picasso have been used on stamps, including:

Seated Nude, 1905
La Vie, 1903

Rembrandt Peale - Rubens Peale with a Geranium

Rembrandt Peale (1778-1860) - Rubens Peale with a Geranium (1802)
USA 32c Stamp Issued 1998
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

It comes as no surprise that Rembrandt Peale's father was himself an artist, giving his children the names of famous artists as first names - Rembrandt and Rubens.  The artist was quite young when he completed this work, and he appears to have lived a very privileged life, travelling to Europe from his native America on several times throughout his life to study art.  He would later become famous a a portrait painter for more than one American president.

George Catlin - White Cloud, Head Chief of the Iowas

George Catlin (1796-1872) - White Cloud, Head Chief of the Iowas (1870)
USA 32c Stamp issued 1998
National Gallery of Art Washington DC

Catlin maintained a fascination with American Indian culture throughout his life.  Although he grew up in the eastern states of the US, he also spent many years exploring the west, visiting scores of tribes and completing hundreds of paintings in the 1830s.  He tried to sell his large collection of paintings and artefacts to the US government, with no success during his life - even though he did have some success in exhibiting his work on the vanishing Indian tribes in Europe.  Much of his work is now maintained at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington DC, although this painting was completed i nthe latter period of his life, well after he had completed the original sketches of tribes he had visited.

Ammi Phillips - Little Girl in Red Dress with Cat and Dog

Ammi Phillips (1788-1865) - Little Girl in Red Dress with Cat and Dog (1835)
USA 32c Stamp Issued 1998
American Folk Art Museum 

This artist was a prolific producer of folk art during his long career.  It is interesting to note that much of his work was not attributed to anyone in particular, until the 1920s when a group of people in Kent, Connecticut, began to collect much of his work, which was distinct, yet similar in nature.  The works became known as "Kent Limner" style up until the late 1960s when the works were finally attributed to Phillips.


Th figures in his paintings are quite distinct - faces are pale and sombre, with an overall mood of malevolence.

Brian Dunlop - Queen Elizabeth II

Brian Dunlop (1938-2009) - Royal Portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (1984)
Australia 60c Stamp Issued 2011
Painting Held at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Brian Dunlop was a prolific and successful Australian still life and portrait painter of the modern age.  This painting was commissioned in 1984 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the state of Victoria in Australia, and it was donated to the National Gallery of Victoria in the same year.


Australia continues to issue Queen's Birthday stamps around June each year, as a long weekend holiday is still observed, even though it is not really the Queen's Birthday!  

Dame Nellie Melba Portrait - Rupert Bunny

Portrait of Dame Nellie Melba - Rupert Bunny (1902)
Australia 60c Stamp Issued 2011
Painting held at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 

This stamp has been issued to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Dame Nellie Melba, the famous opera singer from the late 19th century.  Melba had a long and successful career, and a very interesting personal life as she mixed with dukes and famous people throughout Europe.  To this day, her name is remembered through a common dessert - Peach Melba - in addition to having a Canberra suburb named after her.  


Melba's portrait was completed by one of Australia's most popular artists at the height of both their careers. She was also the first Australian woman to be depicted on an Australian stamp back in 1961.

Dame Nellie Melba - 1961 5d Stamp Australia

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II - Rolf Harris (2006)

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II - Rolf Harris (2006)
Australia $2.25 Stamp Issued 2011

The Queen's Birthday stamp issue for 2011 depicts one of the most popular and well known portraits of the Queen by an Australian artist.  Rolf Harris began his career in television in Australia, but he has lived the majority of his life in the UK.  During the height of his career in the 1970s, his programs centred around paintings which he completed live on TV - in addition to singing many songs that are now painful to hear.

This portrait was commissioned for the Queen's  80th birthday - it is often well regarded as it shows her friendly side in the prime of her life.

Joshua Johnson - The Westwood Children

The Westwood Children (1807)  - Joshua Johnson (1863-1924)
USA 32c Stamp Issued 1998
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Johnson was born as a slave in America, being the son of a white man and a black slave woman.  He was granted freedom in 1782 and worked as a portrait painter for the remainder of his life, primarily working in the Maryland district.  Much of his life remained unknown up until the discovery of manuscripts in the 1990s that linked a number of his works together.


This stamp depicts one section of Johnson most known paintings, being the Westwood Children.  The Westwood family owned a successful stage coach manufacturing facility.  The real painting also includes the family dog, inexactly places to the bottom right of the frame, with an overall awkward composition.

Jules Bastien-Lepage - Rural Love

Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848-1884)  - Rural Love (1882)
16K Russian Stamp issued 1973
Held at the Pushkin Museum Moscow

Bastien-Lepage is best known for his beautifully detailed naturalist paintings that depicted rural scenes in France in the 19th Century.  His works lean towards impressionism, while also maintaining focus on realistic scenes with good framing and composition.  The artist's most famous work is Joan of Arc, with it's spooky setting of translucent saints hiding in the depths of a French garden.

Cecil Beaton - Queen Elizabeth II

Cecil Beaton (1904-1980) - The Queen at Buckingham Palace (1953) 

Australia $2.45 Stamp Issued 2006

Held by the V&A Museum London

This photograph was taken at the time of the Annigoni portrait of the queen in 1956, by one of Britain's most famous photographes in the 20th century.  The image was used for the 2006 Queens Birthday stamp issue in 2006 to celebrate her 80th Birthday.  The queen is wearing the Order of the Garter.

Mihaly Munkacsy - Yawning Apprentice (Asito inas)

Mihaly Munkacsy (1844-1900)  - Yawning Apprentice (Asito inas) 1869

Hungarian Stamp Issued 1966

Although this is not an impressionist piece of work, at first viewing this does appear to be quite unsettling, in the style of Edvard Munch's "The Scream" which was completed in 1893, well after this work by Munkacsy.  This painting is typical of this artist's work, as he revelled in depicting scenes of people from an everyday perspective.  If a model was used for this painting, they would probably have a very sore neck and mouth at the end of the sitting.

Miklos Barabas (1810-1898) - Portrait of Mrs. István Bittó (1874)

Miklos Barabas  (1810-1898) - Portrait of Mrs. István Bittó (1874)

Hungarian Stamp Issued in 1966

Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest

Barabas was mostly known for his portraits that were made of wealthy individuals within Hungarian society at the time of this painting.  This is a portrait of the wife of the Hungarian Prime Minister from 1874-1875.  The painter was also a member of the Hungarian Parliament in 1867.  

Benczúr Julius - Reading women in the woods

Benczúr Julius (1844-1920) - Reading women in the woods (1875)

Hungarian Stamp Issued in 1966

Benczur was a Hungarian born painter who gained some international recognition during his career which included a large amount of time in Munich, Germany undertaking a professorship.  He mainly did paintings of the upper classes and aristocrats when he returned to Hungary and his name is now carried by a street in Budapest.

This painting is rather idyllic and stylised for the time - an upper class 19th century lady manages to peacefully read a book in the woods in the summertime, without being attacked by flies and insects.  The stamp is a poor reproduction of the original painting, which can be found here.

Leonardo da Vinci - Mona Lisa (La Gioconda)

Leonardo da Vinci - Mona Lisa (1506)
France Stamp Issued 2008
Painting held at the Louvre Paris

Today is the 491st anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci's death.  This painting needs no introduction as it is one of the greatest works from the renaissance period.  

Some interesting observations/claims from Wikipedia:

• the painting was not named until 31 years after Leonardo da Vinci's death
• it only became very famous from the 18th Century
• the painting was commissioned for a rich Florentine merchant's family to celebrate the birth of their first child;
• six million people now view the painting, which is held behind bullet proof glass in a specifically built facility within the Louvre;
• it was one of the first portrait pictures to depict the sitter in an imaginary landscape and an aerial perspective;
• it was stolen from the Louvre in 1911 by and Italian employee, who tried to sell the painting to Uffizi Gallery in Florence, after holding it in his apartment for two years.

Leonardo da Vinci also influenced a number of artists of the renaissance period who have had their works depicted on stamps:

Albrecht Durer - Adam

Raphael - The Large Cowper Madonna

Raphael - La Belle Jardiniere