This volume presents the history of portrait painting in the Western world, starting with its roots in ancient art and focusing on its flowering as an autonomous genre beginning in the 15th century. Works feature in the book represent all types of portraiture - individual and group portraits, official and casual settings, subjects both famous and anonymous, renderings of friends, family and the artists themselves. Masters of portraiture - including Van Eyck, Leonardo, Raphael, Hals, Rembrandt, Holbein, Gainsborough, Velasquez, Sargent and many others - are all represented, as a more recent practitioners of the genre such as Picasso, Chuck Close and Gerhard Richter. Nearly 300 major paintings from collections throughout the world are presented in full-page reproductions, while informative details highlight certain aspects of the paintings, providing insight into the painters' techniques.