Watercolour
Transparent paint made from powdered pigment bound with gum Arabic and thinned with water in use. The term usually refers to a type of painting where the paint has been applied in washes onto specially prepared white or light coloured paper. It is the light reflecting back from the paper through the colour that gives watercolour its special luminous quality. More generally the term can be used to describe any paint mixed with a medium soluble in water.
Queen Elizabeth I
by Nicholas Hilliard
1572
NPG 108
Charles Rousseau Burney
by Edward Francisco Burney
circa 1775-1780
NPG 1860
Edward Francisco Burney
by Edward Francisco Burney
circa 1785-1800
NPG D14387
Claudine de Begnis (née Ronzi)
by Alfred Edward Chalon
circa 1823
NPG 1328
The Children of Benjamin and Elizabeth Mayson
attributed to Henry Dorling
1848
NPG 5473
John Ruskin
by Sir Hubert von Herkomer
1879
NPG 1336
John Poyntz Spencer, 5th Earl Spencer; George Frederick Samuel Robinson, 1st Marquess of Ripon and 3rd Earl de Grey
by Sir Leslie Ward
1892
NPG 6183
William Roberts
by William Roberts
circa 1912-1913
NPG 6135
Marlene Dietrich
by Anthony Wysard
published in The Tatler 7 April 1937
NPG D271
Jean Muir
by David Remfry
1981
NPG 6556
Sir Roy Calne; John Bellany
by John Bellany
1992
NPG 6193
Dame Anita Roddick
by Sara Rossberg
1995
NPG 6335