grand statements; On the occasion of a sumptuous new book, William Norwich considers the portrait's cherished place in society.(Gabriel Badea-Pffiun's 'The Society Portrait: From David to Warhol')

Byline: William Norwich

For centuries, commissioning one's portrait was practically a social obligation. The idea was to reflect not "the minute breaks and peculiarities in the face," as Sir Joshua Reynolds observed, but "a general idea" of one's place in society. The rise and demise of this painterly vanity is the subject of the Paris-based art historian Gabriel Badea-Pffiun's lavishly illustrated new book, The Society Portrait: From David to Warhol, published this month by the Vendome Press.

Whether one thinks of John Singer Sargent's infamous Madame X or Lucian Freud's unlikely portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, the collaborations between artist and subject have produced dramatic results. In the early twentieth century, Consuelo Vanderbilt, later the duchess of Marlborough, was painted by, among others, Paul Helleu, Giovanni Boldini, and Sargent, as well as caricatured by Georges Goursat, a.k.a. Sem. Her memoir, The Glitter & the Gold, published in 1952, is filled with accounts of her various sittings, including the conditions under which she would sit for Boldini, in Paris in 1900. "Helleu took me to his studio and Boldini expressed the wish to paint me. Such a compliment could not be easily refused and I agreed to sit for him provided his behavior remained exemplary, for he had a salacious reputation with women." During the sittings, the duchess reported, "it was difficult for him to restrain the sallies that his Bohemian nature inspired." (The portrait is now in the possession of the Metropolitan Museum.)

Though society portraits have been on the wane-Badea-Pffiun attributes the lamentable decline ...