The Intimate Portrait:
Drawings, miniatures and pastels from Ramsay to Lawrence
Exhibition organised by the National Galleries of Scotland and
the British Museum
5 March – 31 May 2009
Room 90
Admission free
The first ever major UK exhibition to examine a fascinating but
relatively unknown aspect of British portraiture will open at the
British Museum this spring. The Intimate
Portrait will explore the period between the 1730s
and the 1830s – the heyday of British portraiture – when some of
the country’s greatest artists produced beautifully worked
portraits in pencil, chalks, watercolours and pastels that were
often exhibited, sold and displayed as finished works of art.
Jointly organised by the National Galleries of Scotland and the
British Museum, this exhibition of 180 works will draw upon the
superb (and largely unexplored) holdings of intimate portrait
drawings in the collections of both institutions, as well as upon
important private collections that have been placed on long-term
loan at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Highlights will
include masterpieces by Allan Ramsay, Thomas Gainsborough, Joshua
Reynolds, Thomas Lawrence and David Wilkie.
While oil paintings and sculpture dominated the very public art
of portraiture which flourished in Georgian and Regency Britain,
many artists were simultaneously involved in creating more private
portraits for domestic consumption and display. Portrait miniatures
painted in watercolour on ivory were worn as jewellery or displayed
as treasures in cabinets; pastels with their fragile but brilliant
surfaces were protected under glass and hung within gilt frames;
while drawings were either framed and hung in family groups or kept
in albums or portfolios to be shown to friends and family.
Until now, there has never been a serious investigation of these
captivating modes of portraiture, and it has largely been forgotten
that these smaller, more intimate portraits were also enjoyed by a
wider public, and were exhibited in their hundreds at the Royal
Academy in London and other public exhibition spaces in Britain.
Sir Thomas Lawrence’s magnificent portrait drawing of Mary
Hamilton, which will feature in the exhibition, was one of a dozen
pastel and chalk drawings he showed at the RA in 1789.
The Intimate Portrait will bring
together works by around eighty artists, including many of the
leading figures of the period, such as Richard Cosway, Henry
Fuseli, John Downman, John Hoppner, the architect George Dance and
the Irish artist Hugh Douglas Hamilton. Two Scottish artists, John
Brown and Archibald Skirving, will be a revelation to London
audiences and of particular note will be two masterly self-portrait
drawings by the young rivals Joshua Reynolds and Thomas
Gainsborough.
The exhibition is arranged thematically to look at artists’
self-portraits and images of their families and friends, as well as
their portrayal of the rising middle classes and the celebrities of
the day. Well-known sitters include Prince Charles Edward Stuart,
Robert Burns, Walter Scott, Lady Hamilton, the Duke of Wellington
and the young Queen Victoria. Intimate portraits are revealed to be
important indicators of contemporary taste and ideas of
‘sentiment’, particularly through the many portraits of women and
of children. The exhibition explores how and why they were made,
where they were displayed and, above all, their qualities as
portraits that are ‘intimate’ in the multiple senses of the
word.
For further information on the exhibition, or images: Katrina
Whenham 020 7323 8583 kwhenham@britishmuseum.org
Other exhibition highlights will include:
- Sarah Biffin, Self-portrait (1830) was born without arms or
legs. Growing to a height of just over 3 feet, when aged 13 she was
contracted into the service of a travelling circus show and put on
‘public exhibition’ for 16 years. She demonstrated great skill in
painting and drawing with her mouth. In 1808, her skills were
brought to the attention of the Royal Family and she was released
from her contract. Her work was exhibited at the Royal Academy and
her name was remembered in many literary works during and after her
lifetime, most notably by Charles Dickens who mentions her in four
of his greatest works. This is the first time this work will be
displayed in London.
- Chevalier D’Eon by George Dance (1793). D’Eon was a French
noble, known for his prowess as a solider, diplomat, secret agent
and scholar but he was most famous for being a flamboyant
transvestite. After upsetting the French government, he was forced
to wear women’s attire in public and he later retired to England
where for the rest of his days he lived as a woman, even performing
in public displays of fencing in full lady’s dresses. This portrait
shows precisely what Dance saw, a man dressed as a woman with the
medal of his knighthood proudly displayed on his chest.
- Angelica Kauffman, attributed to Nathaniel Dance (1764–6). The
drawing was originally attributed to Kauffman herself; the
allegorical compositional type of ‘female artist as muse’ was one
Kauffman used frequently in many of her self-portraits. She is
staring fixedly at the blank sheet with the waiting crayon in front
of her, caught in a private moment of introspection, unaware of the
artist or anything except her relationship with her art. This work
has never been exhibited before. If this portrait is by Nathaniel
Dance, then it may have been drawn around 1764–6 when they met in
Rome before her rejection of him as a suitor in London.
- An eye miniature of Princess Charlotte by Charlotte Jones
(c.1817). Princess Charlotte was the only child of George IV,
married to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield. After two
miscarriages, Charlotte became pregnant with what was hoped would
be a son and heir. A difficult pregnancy was followed by a
fifty–hour labour which resulted in a stillborn son; the princess
died five hours later. These two deaths caused an outbreak of
national mourning and ended the direct line of succession for
George IV. The eye-miniature is remarkable not only for the
circumstances of its commission as a memorial, but also as a very
rare example of the identity of a sitter for an eye being known. It
is also exceptionally unusual for an eye-miniature to be displayed
on top of the hair of the sitter. Charlotte Jones was a miniature
painter who studied with Richard Cosway and exhibited at the Royal
Academy.
Notes to editors
- The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated
catalogue, priced £25; written by co-curators Dr Stephen Lloyd,
Senior Curator at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, and by Dr
Kim Sloan, Curator of British Drawings and Watercolours before 1880
at the British Museum.
- The exhibition will be shown first at the Scottish National
Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh from 25 October 2008 – 1 February
2009.
- A number of lectures and gallery talks will accompany the
exhibition. For more information check online or contact the press
office.
- The Department of Prints and Drawings cares for the national
collection of prints and drawings, all of which are accessible to
the public through its Students’ Room and through changing
exhibitions and loans around the UK and abroad. The collection
comprises approximately 60,000 drawings and over two and a half
million prints dating from the beginning of the fifteenth century
to the present day. More than a million works from the collection
are now searchable online, 270,000 of them with images.
Search the collection database