Portraiture, as we now know, was a very early member of the nascent arts of primitive man.

Palæolithic men were of necessity hunters. What they hunted on the plains and among the hills for food and covering, that they painted or carved on the walls and roofs of their cave dwellings and cliff shelters. The reindeer, the bison, the horse, the elephant were favourite objects of their vivid and impressionistic genius. What they lacked of imagination they made up for by exact memories and singularly skilful technique. Less frequent were their delineations of humanity, and as concerns the female part of it, most unflattering, being affected by a kind of exasperated candour. The Age of Chivalry was far distant indeed!