Prints & Multiples

Why Do We Buy Portraits of Strangers?

13 October 2026

Kirstie Davidson

What makes us want to own a portrait of somebody we have never met? The sitter may be unidentified, unfamiliar or only briefly known to the artist, yet the image can still feel immediate and compelling.

The answer often lies less in who the person was than in what the artist saw in them. A portrait records choices: the turn of a head, a particular expression, the fall of light or the details an artist decides to reveal. Through works by Rembrandt, Richard Learoyd and Bryan Wynter, we can see how portraiture becomes as much about the maker as the person depicted.

Quick Answer: Why Are We Drawn to Portraits of Unknown People? We respond to portraits because they invite us to interpret another person. Expression, pose, clothing, technique and atmosphere offer clues without providing a complete story. Even when the sitter is unknown, the artist’s decisions can create intimacy, mystery or recognition and leave space for the viewer’s imagination.

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What Makes a Portrait Compelling?

A portrait does not need a famous sitter to hold our attention. It needs presence. We instinctively look for faces, expressions and gestures. A direct gaze can feel confrontational; an averted one suggests introspection or distance. Clothing may indicate status, period or personality, while the background can place the sitter within a recognisable world or remove them from one altogether.

The most compelling portraits rarely explain everything. They give us enough information to begin forming an impression, while withholding enough to keep us looking.

Does the Identity of the Sitter Matter?

Knowing the identity of a sitter can add historical and biographical context, particularly if the portrait depicts a significant figure. It is not, however, essential to our enjoyment of the work. An unidentified sitter can sometimes make a portrait more open. Without a fixed biography, viewers concentrate on expression, technique and mood. We may even begin to supply a story of our own.

For many collectors, the more important identity is therefore that of the artist. A portrait by Rembrandt is compelling not simply because it records a face, but because it reveals how Rembrandt looked, thought and worked.

Rembrandt van Rijn | Valuation, Buy, Sell at Auction

Artists

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn

Dutch 1606 - 1669

Rembrandt: The Artist as His Own Subject

Rembrandt van Rijn returned repeatedly to his own image throughout his career. His self-portraits allowed him to study ageing, expression, costume and identity while also testing the possibilities of painting, drawing and printmaking.

In the 1638 etching Self-Portrait in a Velvet Cap with Plume, Rembrandt presents himself in elaborate, old-fashioned dress. The plume, velvet cap, beard and hair are described through extraordinarily controlled lines, yet the image is more than a display of technical ability.

Rembrandt often experimented with costumes that belonged to an earlier age. Here, clothing helps him assume a role. He is both himself and a character of his own invention: artist, model and observer at once. The work also demonstrates what etching can achieve. Using a needle to draw through a protective ground on a metal plate, Rembrandt builds differences in texture and tone through line alone. The softness of velvet, the lightness of the feather and the irregular growth of hair are each made visually distinct.

When collectors respond to a Rembrandt self-portrait, they are not necessarily responding to Rembrandt as a historical personality. They are encountering an artist examining how identity can be constructed on a small sheet of paper.

Artists

Richard Learoyd

British 1966 -

Richard Learoyd: Detail, Stillness and the Camera Obscura

Richard Learoyd’s portrait Tatiana and Olga, Grateful creates a very different kind of encounter. His photographs are made using a room-sized camera obscura, producing a direct-positive image on light-sensitive paper without an intervening negative. Each photograph is therefore unique.

The process produces an exceptional level of detail. Skin, fabric and individual hairs become visible as the viewer approaches the image. Yet this precision does not make the sitter entirely knowable. Instead, it heightens our awareness of physical presence while preserving a sense of emotional distance.

Learoyd’s portraits often appear quiet and carefully staged. Their scale and stillness recall painted portraiture, while their technical clarity belongs unmistakably to photography. The lengthy process also requires concentration from both artist and sitter, giving the resulting image a sense of suspended time.

Here, the attraction lies partly in the tension between intimacy and uncertainty. We can examine the subjects closely, but their thoughts remain private.

Bryan Wynter: Portraiture as Experiment

Bryan Wynter is best known for the increasingly abstract paintings he produced in post-war St Ives. His work developed alongside that of artists including Patrick Heron, Terry Frost and Roger Hilton, while drawing upon Surrealism, landscape and abstraction.

His 1950 monoprint Head in Green is therefore an unusual work. It belongs neither comfortably to conventional portraiture nor to the abstract landscapes for which he later became known. Instead, the head becomes a field for experiment.

The green colour, simplified features and printed surface move the image away from straightforward likeness. Its appeal lies in seeing an artist test another way of working at a formative moment in his career. Tate’s collection confirms Wynter’s activity in St Ives during this period and shows the decisive shift towards freer abstraction that followed in the mid-1950s.

Because a monoprint generally produces a single principal impression, the process also gives the work a distinctive individuality. Like Learoyd’s direct-positive photograph, it occupies an interesting position between an image made through reproduction and a unique work of art.

The Portrait as a Record of the Artist

These three works differ greatly in date, medium and intention, but each reveals something about its maker. Rembrandt uses his own face to investigate costume, identity and the expressive possibilities of etched line. Learoyd employs a painstaking photographic process to create clarity without complete disclosure. Wynter approaches the head as an experimental arrangement of colour and form.

The sitters matter, but they are not the whole subject. Each work records an encounter between artist, person and medium. This is one reason portraits of strangers can be so rewarding to collect. They give us access not only to another human presence, but to the process by which an artist chose to represent it.

What to Look for in a Portrait

When considering a portrait, look beyond whether you recognise the sitter.

Expression and gaze: Where is the sitter looking, and how does that affect your relationship with the image?
Pose and composition: Has the artist created formality, movement, vulnerability or distance?
Clothing and setting: Are these descriptive details, symbols of status or part of a deliberately constructed identity?
Technique: How has the medium shaped the portrait? Compare an etched line with a photographic surface or a painted mark.
Artist and context: Is the portrait typical of the artist’s work, or does it reveal an unusual period of experimentation?
Condition and impression: For prints and photographs, the quality of the impression, paper, surface and colour can materially affect both appearance and value.
Provenance: Exhibition history, previous ownership and supporting documentation can add important context.

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Why Collect Portrait Art?

Portraits combine human interest with artistic invention. They can be intimate without being sentimental, historically revealing without relying on a famous name, and visually powerful across painting, printmaking and photography.

Some collectors are drawn to a particular period or artist. Others respond to faces, clothing, social history or the technical qualities of a medium. A collection might bring together self-portraits, anonymous sitters, artist portraits or works that challenge the boundary between portraiture and abstraction.

The best reason to buy a portrait, however, is often the simplest: you continue to look at it. Its expression resists easy interpretation, its technique rewards close attention, or its atmosphere changes each time you return.

Department

Prints & Multiples

Frequently Asked Questions

Collectors may be attracted by the artist, technique, period, expression or atmosphere rather than the sitter’s identity. An unknown sitter can also make a portrait more open to interpretation.

They can be. Value depends upon factors including the artist, date, medium, quality, condition, rarity, provenance and market demand. A sitter’s identity may add value, but it is only one consideration.

A successful portrait does more than record appearance. Through composition, expression, colour, light and technique, it creates a convincing presence or communicates an idea about identity.

Self-portraiture allowed Rembrandt to study his own face, experiment with expression and costume, refine his technique and shape how he presented himself as an artist.

Learoyd’s camera-obscura portraits are created as direct-positive photographs without a negative, making each resulting image unique rather than part of a conventional photographic edition.

Confirm the attribution, medium, dimensions, condition, provenance and whether a print or photograph is unique or belongs to an edition. For historic portraits, inscriptions and labels may also help identify the sitter or previous ownership.

Specialist

Kirstie Davidson

Head of Prints & Multiples | London

Why Do We Buy Portraits of Strangers?

Got Something to Sell?

What Makes a Portrait Compelling?

Does the Identity of the Sitter Matter?

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn

Rembrandt: The Artist as His Own Subject

Richard Learoyd

Richard Learoyd: Detail, Stillness and the Camera Obscura

Bryan Wynter: Portraiture as Experiment

The Portrait as a Record of the Artist

What to Look for in a Portrait

See More on Social

Why Collect Portrait Art?

Prints & Multiples

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do people buy portraits of unknown sitters?

Are portraits of unidentified people valuable?

What makes a portrait artistically successful?

Why did Rembrandt make so many self-portraits?

Is every photograph by Richard Learoyd unique?

What should collectors check before buying a portrait?

Kirstie Davidson