1755-1828 Gilbert Stuart was born in North Kingston, R.I., on Dec. 3, 1755. At the age of 13 or 14 he studied art with the Scottish painter Cosmo Alexander in Newport. With Alexander he made a tour of the South and a journey to Edinburgh, where Alexander died in 1772. For about a year Stuart remained, poverty-stricken, in Scotland, but finally, working as a sailor, he managed to get back to America. There he executed a few portraits in a hard limner fashion. With the Revolutionary War threatening, his family, who had Tory sympathies, fled to Nova Scotia, and Stuart sailed for London, where he remained from 1775 to 1787. For the first 4 or 5 years, Stuart served as the first assistant of American expatriate painter Benjamin West, who had rescued him from poverty. From the first, Stuart showed an interest only in portraiture and had no desire to go into the branch of history painting West practiced. After his apprenticeship, Stuart became London's leading portrait painter, next to Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough, whose style he emulated, as in a rare full-length portrait of William Grant of Congalton as The Skater (ca. 1782). For a while Stuart lived in splendor, but being a bad businessman and a profligate spender, he was in constant debt. He lived in Ireland from 1787 to 1792 and then returned to America to make a fortune,  Related Paintings of Gilbert Stuart :. | The Skater | Portrait of Robert R. Livingston | Anna Payne Cutts | Joseph Brant | Mrs. Richard Yates |
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Balthasar Denner
(15 November 1685 in Altona - 14 April 1749 in Rostock) was a German painter, highly-regarded as a portraitist. He painted mostly half-length and head-and-shoulders portraits and a few group portraits of families in interiors. Usually Denner concentrated on the face; clothes and paraphernalia were done by other painters or later his daughter.
Lambert Sustris
(c. 1515-1520 - c. 1584) was a Dutch painter active mainly in Venice during the Mannerist style. He is also referred to as Alberto de Olanda (Albert of Holland). He was born in Amsterdam, and only came to Venice when over 40 years old. His training is unknown, but he was utilized by the studio of Titian for the depiction of landscapes. He accompanied Titian on his trips to Augsburg in 1548 and 1550 - 1551, and there executed portraits. Returning to Venice, he was influenced by Parmigianino and Andrea Meldolla. He was a teacher to Girolamo Muziano. His son was Friedrich Sustris.
Johann Carl Loth
German Baroque Era Painter, 1632-1698 was a German painter, born in Munich but active most of his life in Venice. He is also called Johann Karl, Carlotto, and Carlo Lotti. He was the son and pupil of Johann Ulrich Loth (1590- 1662). He was commissioned to paint for the emperor Leopold in Vienna. He was influenced by Pietro Liberi. His brother Franz Loth was also a painter in Venice and Germany. He had numerous pupils including Willem Drost, Cornelis de Bruijn, Johann Michael Rottmayr, Paul Strudel, Santo Prunati, Daniel Seiter, and Giovan Battista Langetti.