Joanna Richardson

The Painter of Modern Times: Constantin Guys

Joanna Richardson portrays one of the greatest of nineteenth-century pictorial journalists, Constantin Guys; a remarkably perceptive artist, to whom Charles Baudelaire consecrated his most famous work in prose.

Nadar: A Portrait

‘A sort of giant’, with immensely long arms and legs and a mop of bristling red hair, Felix Nadar employed his creative gifts in several different arts and sciences.

Louis-Philippe: A Portrait

‘The poor King was thoroughly French in character, possessing all the liveliness and talkativeness of that people.’ So wrote Queen Victoria about the King of the French. Joanna Richardson offers her portrait of the man at the head of the July Monarchy, whose reign lasted from 1830 until 1848.

Winterhalter: Portrait of an Artist

Franz Xaver Winterhalter's romantic representations of royal and noble personages, writes Joanna Richardson, have an unquestionable charm for those who live in a more pedestrian age.

Queen Victoria as a Writer

Joanna Richardson describes how Queen Victoria wrote as she certainly must have talked - with common sense, some simplicity, much shrewdness, and occasional indiscretions.

The Princess Mathilde

Joanna Richardson describes how the gifted cousin of the Emperor Napoleon III acted as an all-powerful intermediary between the studio and the palace.