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Famous people face swap

Nine people everyone can name and almost nobody could pick out of a crowd, because what made them famous was never their face.

Where these faces came from

Each of these portraits became the official version of a person by outlasting the competition. Stieler got two or three grudging sittings out of Beethoven and invented the hands; that picture is now what Beethoven looks like. Barbara Krafft painted Mozart in 1819 from other pictures and family recollection, twenty-eight years after he died, and hers is on the chocolate boxes. Duplessis painted Franklin in Paris, and the engraver of the hundred-dollar note worked from it.

The Shakespeare is the shakiest and the most interesting. It is the only surviving image with a serious claim to have been painted while he was alive, and people have been arguing about whether it is him since the eighteenth century.

Two that were painted from the room

The Russian pair are different in kind, because both were made in the sitter's presence by a painter who knew him. Perov waited a week in the Dostoevsky household before starting, in order to catch an expression the family recognised. Repin painted Mussorgsky in a hospital ward over four days in March 1881 and the composer died ten days afterwards.

They are worth choosing for that reason, and worth a moment's thought before you do. The Mussorgsky in particular is a portrait of a man at the end of his life, painted by a friend who decided not to tidy him up, and it carries that whatever face you put in it.

What the swap is doing here

More than usual, because you are not borrowing a costume, you are borrowing a name. These pictures are so heavily reproduced that the outline alone is recognisable, and the result reads as a specific claim about who you are being rather than as a general historical look.

Technically they are among the easier targets on the site. Every one of them is a large head in even light against a plain ground, which is what an engraver needed and therefore what got painted. Beethoven's hair, Franklin's grey length, Shakespeare's receding hairline and Mozart's wig all stay exactly as they are.

Shakespeare Shakespeare Mozart Mozart Beethoven Beethoven Chopin Chopin Dostoevsky Dostoevsky Mussorgsky Mussorgsky Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln

How it works

  1. Take a photo

    Front camera, decent light, look straight ahead. Or pick one you already have.

  2. We paint you in

    Your face goes into the painting, keeping its light and its brushwork. About fifteen seconds.

  3. Share the link

    You get a page anyone can open. No account, nothing to install.