Can two portraits be much more different? Dickinson’s stand will feature, among the highlights, Niccolò dell’Abate’s Portrait of Ercole II d’Este (1508 – 1559) and David Hockney’s Yves-Marie in Wicker Chair (1979), works by two of the greatest portraitists of their respective eras – separated by four centuries. While dell’Abate, working at the royal Château de Fontainebleau, was painting an image of wealth and power for a public audience, Hockney’s portrait of his Parisian lover is a far more tender, personal and informal image, captured with spontaneity rather than finesse and fine detail. The two artists are nevertheless united in the success of their respective portraits, each of which captures a sitter as he would wish to be seen. Indeed, Hockney recalled many hours studying works by old masters such as dell’Abate in the Louvre during his time in Paris, observing: ‘I was, in a way, looking at art of the long past, and at early modern art, which of course was made in Paris.’