Fine art & antiques by Dr. Lori: Collecting house paintings

Today, we are experiencing a revival of one of art history’s longstanding trends — the painting, collecting, and preserving of the house or home portraits. Whether an artwork’s subject is your house or the Oldest House in America which is located in St. Augustine, Fla., images of homes have recently regained popular interest and have become a new gift idea for the new and old homeowners.

Helping to make house paintings or home portraits a popular art form and collecting category, numerous artists are offering the service of commissioned artwork based on a photograph of clients’ houses.

Like family portraits, portraits of homes are now making a splash in the decor of many new and not-so-new homes.

In addition, many of us are collecting images of our childhood homes, as well as vacation homes, in order to remember a beloved site where family gatherings took place in days gone by.

This strong art historical tradition of home portraiture was popular with the historic monarchies throughout Europe for centuries.

Of course, artists depicted some of the great buildings of history such as the Palace at Versailles, home of French monarchs Louis XIV and Louis XV.

Versailles attracted artists to it long after its completion, too. As late as the 19th century, circa 1818, American artist John Vanderlyn painted a famous circular, panoramic view of the Palace at Versailles, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection.

Like the French site, Great Britain’s esteemed Windsor Castle, one of the Queen’s official residences, has been immortalized in fine and folk art many times since it was erected as a fortress and castle more than 900 years ago.

Today, Windsor Castle remains the largest occupied castle in the world.

While Windsor Castle houses the Royal Art Collection, including paintings by Hans Holbein, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony Van Dyck, fine tapestries, porcelain, sculpture, armor and more, the site itself has been the subject of numerous portraits detailing its impressive and breathtaking structure.

Here at home, the majestic White House has been similarly reproduced as paintings, prints and other works of art.

The president’s house was a major feature of L’Enfant’s plan for the city of Washington in 1791. Envisioning a vast palace for the president, the White House was depicted often.

We are familiar with the early presidential portraits on display in the White House, however, the prime interest in depicting the White House as a subject itself came of age after the burning in 1814 and rebuilding of the presidential home in 1817.

On Aug. 24, 1814, when British soldiers approached the nation’s capital, First Lady Dolley Madison insisted that Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of President George Washington be saved.

Of course, the Stuart portrait was saved, but the White House perished.

After 1817, the White House became a popular subject for American artists and their foreign colleagues.

One of the most famous images of the White House in our nation’s capital is an engraving by William Strickland from a watercolor by George Munger from the Library of Congress collection, dated 1814.

The idea of commissioning and collecting an original work of art or fine art print depicting your home, like that of the world’s historic homes, has sparked a new contemporary trend which recalls an old tradition.

Produced and immortalized in various media such as textile, tapestry, needlepoint, watercolor, prints and oil on canvas to name a few, many collectors are interested in adding an artwork of the home to an existing art collection on display within the home.

As seen on WNEP 16 TV, Comcast CN8 TV, Retirement Living TV and DirecTV, Dr. Lori is a certified appraiser with a doctorate degree in art history. For more information, visit www.DrLoriV.com or call (888) 431-1010.