This study establishes the grounds of comparison between visual and verbal portraiture - from the arrival of Van Dyck to the publication of Boswell's "Life of Johnson". The text is grounded in modern theory devoted to the comparison of literature and painting and to the problems of representation. Among the writers considered are Izaak Walton, John Evelyn, John Aubrey, Roger North, Goldsmith, Johnson, Mrs Piozzi and Boswell; and of painters, Van Dyck, Lely, Samuel Cooper, Jonathan Richardson, Hogarth and Reynolds.