Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00062

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-19078

Eighteenth-century England possessed a thriving portrait culture: likenesses of particular individuals exhibited at the Royal Academy or in the interiors of public institutions, such as guildhalls and charity foundations, as well as in private houses, were part of a network of visual communication that encompassed print-collecting, popular performance, and figurative acts of speech.

In this original and stimulating book, Marcia Pointon demonstrates how portraiture provided mechanisms both for constructing and accessing a national past and for controlling a present that appeared increasingly unruly. Through detailed historical analyses of particular aspects of portrait representation – images of criminals, the fashions and rituals around the masculine culture of hair and wigs, the gendering of childhood in celebrated paintings like Penelope with or 'Pinkie' – Pointon establishes the rich and complex ways in which portraiture reflected eighteenth-century England. How 'the head' was hung – whether it be a matter of the disposition of an actual body or the image of that body – was determined by social rules of posture and decorum, by artistic convention and commercial practice, and literally by the ways in which patrons chose to arrange particular portraits on walls – paintings that served ritual and symbolic as well as decorative functions.

Hanging the Head makes a major contribution to our understanding of portraiture as a cultural and political phenomenon in eighteenth-century Britain. It will be of great interest to art historians and to those concerned with the history of material culture, to museums specialists and to all concerned with literature, politics, and visual culture in eighteenth-century England.

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Author

PublisherPaul Mellon Centre

Yale University Press

Print publication date January 1998 (out of print)

Print ISBN 9780300073683

EISBN 9780300249798

Illustrations 291

Print Status out of print

Publisher (out of print)

WorldCat

Google Books

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List of illustrations

Sir Hugh Percy, 1st Duke of Northumberland
Alexander Pope
Trade card of J. Archer
Trade card of Smith
Trade card of Mr Rosenberg of Bath
Duke of Wellington, trade mark detail
A mother of detained-disappeared persons in Argentina
Royal Hair-do
View of the interior of the Long Room, Trinity College Library, Dublin
Trinity College Library
The drawing-room, Arundel Castle
The drawing-room, Arundel Castle
The Library at Strawberry Hill
The Gallery at Strawberry Hill
A Windy Day — scene outside the shop of Bowles, the printseller, in St. Paul's Churchyard, detail
A Windy Day — scene outside the shop of Bowles, the printseller, in St. Paul's Churchyard
George Vertue and Margaret his Wife, in the very Habits they were Married; Feby 17th Anno Domini 1720
An Old Servant of the Popham Family
The State Bedroom, Beningborough Hall, Yorkshire
Overdoor in the State Bedroom, Beningborough Hall, Yorkshire
Beningborough Hall, Yorkshire, first floor view from east to west
Petworth House, Sussex, the dining-room
The Red Room
The Great Hall, Norton Conyers, Yorkshire
Stowe House, Buckinghamshire, south front
Hall Ceiling, Stowe House, Buckinghamshire
The Tapestry Room, Houghton Hall
Frontispiece to Horace Walpole, Aedes Walpolinae
The saloon, Holkham Hall, Norfolk
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
Charles Howard, 11th Duke of Norfolk
Bernard Edward Howard, 12th Duke of Norfolk
The saloon, Audley End, Essex
Interior of St. Andrew's Hall, Norwich
Interior of St. Andrew's Hall, Norwich, detail
The Common Council Chamber, The Guildhall, London
Lord Heathfield of Gibraltar
James II receiving the President of Christ's Hospital, several of the Governors and a number of the Children
The Great Hall, the Bluecoat School, London
The Great Hall, Christ's Hospital, Newgate Street
The Great Hall, Christ's Hospital, Newgate Street
Lowering Verrio's "James II receiving the President of Christ's Hospital" from the wall of Christ's Hospital Great Hall
Verrio's "James II receiving the President of Christ's Hospital" being rolled up
Transporting Verrio's "James II receiving the President of Christ's Hospital" to Christ's Hospital's new site at Horsham
The Dining Hall of Christ's Hospital, Horsham
The Courtroom at Christ's Hospital
The Court Room at Christ's Hospital
The portraits shown on the end wall in the photograph of the Court Room at Christ's Hospital
John St. Amand
Sir Christopher Clitherow
Mary Delany (née Granville)
The Honourable Lady Stanhope and the Countess of Effingham as Diana, and Her Companion
Royal Academy exhibits: annual percentage by genre (sculpture and miniatures excluded)
Numbers of exhibitors and total number of exhibits at the Royal Academy 1781–5
Royal Academy exhibits, by genre (miniatures and architectural projects excluded), 1780–6
Trade Card of A. Charles
Exhibition Room, Somerset House
Distribution of artists' residences in 1783 (as listed in the Royal Academy catalogues)
Self-portrait
Page from George Romney's account book (and transcript)
The Portrait Painter's Ante-Chamber
The Mutual Attempt to Catch a Likeness
The Portrait Painter's Studio
Trade Card of T. Hazlitt
The Hon. Mrs. Thomas Graham
Portrait of a Young Man
Mrs. Thomas Pownall, née Kennett
Sir John Dick, Bart.
Martha Catharine, Lady Aubrey (née Carter)
Sir William Musgrave, 6th Bt.
Sir William Musgrave, 6th Bt., detail
Title-page to The Conférence of M. Le Brun . . .
The great seal and medals from the reign of William and Mary
Self-portrait
John Selman
A grangerized page of distinguished foreigners
Mosaics in the North Inner Aisle of S. Demetrios, Salonika
The Academicians of the Royal Academy
The Academicians of the Royal Academy, detail showing portraits of Moser and Kauffmann
The Gunpowder Conspirators
The Gunpowder Conspirators, detail
The Gunpowder Conspirators
Guy Fawkes
The Reign of Queen Elizabeth
Dignitaries of the Church from the reign of Henry VIII
Erasmus of Rotterdam
Joanne Harrington, Baron of Exton
Joanne Harrington, Baron of Exton, detail
The Norman Line and The Saxon Line
Book page
Book page
Book page
Book page
Book page, detail
Louise, Duchess of Portsmouth
Frontispiece
Sir William Musgrave
Adam Viscount Duncan
John Howe, 4th Baron Chedworth
Three Ladies Adorning a Term of Hymen
The Life and Death of the Duke of Berwick
Credulity, Superstition and Fanaticism
Cunicularii, or The Wise men of Godliman in Consultation
Mary Tofts of Godelman the pretended Rabbit Breeder
Sarah Malcolm Executed in Fleet street, March 7th 1732 for Robbing the Chambers of Mrs Lydia Duncomb in Temple, and Murdering Her, Eliz Harrison & Ann Price
Young woman holding a Hare
John Sheppard
The Portrait
Mull'd Sack, the Chimney Sweep
Walking
Mrs Newport
William Sommers, King Henry the Eighth's Jester
Mother Louse
The Caricature Port Folio
The Right Honourable Charles James Fox
Public Characters of 1798
Edmund Burke in conversation with his friend Charles James Fox
The Beauty and the Beast
John Horne Tooke
Two Pair of Portraits: – presented to all the unbiased Electors of Great Britain, by John Horne Tooke
Doublures of Characters; or Striking Resemblances in Phisiognomy
Alexander Pope
The Marlborough Family
The Marlborough Family, detail
The Marlborough Family, detail
Lady Frances Tollemache
Fold-out frontispiece
Fold-out frontispiece, detail
Trompe L'Oeil (Self-Portrait)
John Michael Rysbrack
The Chalk Writer
A Midnight Modern Conversation
Theodore Jacobsen
The Company of Undertakers
A Perruquier's Atelier
Bag-wig owned by Sir Thomas Worsley
The Interiors and exteriors of a range of wigs and some details
A Selection of Wigs
The Five orders of Perriwigs as they were worn at the late Coronation measured Architectonically
The Exact Dress of the Head
The Bench
An Election I: The Election Entertainment
A drunk under a hedge
A Scene from Colley Cibber's The Careless Husband
John Wilkes Esqr.
Thomas Venner
The Porten Family
Alexander Pope
Frontispiece
Illustration
Illustration
Jacob Tonson
Daniel Finch, 2nd Earl of Nottingham and 7th Earl of Winchelsea
Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington and 4th Earl of Cork
Caricature of Thomas Brudenell, Baron Bruce, the Hon. John Ward, Joseph Leeson, later 2nd Earl of Milltown, and Joseph Henry of Straffan (Four Learned Milordi)
Thomas Herring, Archbishop of Canterbury
Portrait of Charles Tudway, MP
George Colman the Elder
Samuel Linley
Sir Henry Bate-Dudley, Bart.
George Colman, detail
Dr. Isaac Schomberg
John Sargent Jnr.
William Brabazon, 1st Baron Ponsonby
The Hon. Charles Slone Cadogan, MP
Francis Willoughby, 3rd Baron Middleton
David Garrick with his Wife Eva-Maria Veigel
David Garrick with his Wife Eva-Maria Veigel, detail
Portrait of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in Turkish dress
Woman on a Couch
The Duke of Kingston introducing his Daughter, Lady Mary Montagu as Toast to the Members of the Kit-cat Club
Lady Mary Montagu toasted by Members of the Kit-cat Club
La Sultane Asseki ou Sultane Reine
Portrait of a Lady (called Lady Mary Wortley Montagu)
Princess Henrietta of Lorraine
Portrait of a Lady (called Lady Mary Wortley Montagu)
Portrait of a Lady (called Lady Mary Wortley Montagu)
The Female Traveller
Dame Grèque dans son Apartement
Lady of Constantinople wearing a Tarpous
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Portrait of a Lady (called Lady Mary Wortley Montagu), detail
Portrait of a Lady (called Lady Mary Wortley Montagu), detail
A Turkish Lady dressed for the Street
Omai
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Teresia, Lady Shirley
Nancy Parsons in Turkish dress
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu with her son, Edward Wortley Montagu, and attendants
A Family Group
Queen Charlotte with Members of her Family
Mr James Wyatt
Queen Charlotte (1744–1818) with her Two Eldest Sons
Queen Charlotte with her two Eldest Sons, detail
Queen Charlotte with her two Eldest Sons, detail
Queen Charlotte with her two Eldest Sons, detail
Queen Charlotte with her two Eldest Sons, detail
Telemachus on the Island of Calypso
Queen Charlotte with her two Eldest Sons, detail
Portrait of Mrs Congreve with her Children
William Congreve
Mrs Thomas Congreve
Thomas Congreve
Captain William Congreve with his Son
An Interior with Members of a Family
Edward VI as a Child
The Graham Children
The Graham Children, detail
The Chapeau de Paille (Portrait of Susanna Lunden)
Anne Hanway (née Stowe)
Thomas Noel Hill, 2nd Lord Berwick
Frontispiece
Instruction in the Use of Colours
Master Crewe as Henry VIII
The Age of Innocence
A Child's portrait in different views: Angels' Heads
Miss Juliana Willoughby
Illustration
Illustration
Catherine (Brouncker) Adye, later Catherine Willett
Cupid as Link Boy
Children
The Strawberry Girl
The Vandergucht Children
Lady Caroline Howard
Design for a snuff box lid
Master Parker and his Sister
Lady Caroline Scott as Winter
Thomas John Clavering, later Sir Thomas Clavering, Bart., and Catherine Mary Clavering: The Clavering Children
Thomas, 2nd Baron Mansel of Margam with his Blackwood Half-brothers and Sister
Rules for human proportion
Age and Infancy
Page from The Analysis of Beauty
The Analysis of Beauty, plate 2, detail
Thomas, 2nd Baron Mansel of Margam with his Blackwood Half-brothers and Sister, detail
Sarah Goodin Barrett Moulton: Pinkie
Design for a wall monument
Prince Arthur and the Fairy Queen
Teaching brings out the Best in People
Portrait of a Lady
Master Lambton
Margaret Cocks, later Margaret Smith
Portrait of a Lady, detail
Ashley Cowper with His Wife and Daughter
A Fishing Party
The Cholmondeley Family
A Performance of The Indian Emperor or The Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards
The House of Cards
A Children's Party (The Tea Party)
A Children's Party (The Tea Party), detail
A Children's Party (The Tea Party), detail
The House of Cards, detail
Richard Arkwright and his Wife and Child
Girl Building a House of Cards
A Conversation of Girls
The House of Cards, detail
Portrait of Charlotte Fitzroy
A Children's Party (The Tea Party), detail
Cherry Ripe
Penelope Boothby
Xie Kitchin dressed in the manner of Penelope Boothby
The Minuet
Lorina, Edith and Alice Liddell
Lorina, Edith and Alice Liddell
The Vision of Saint Jerome
Illustration to "Enoch Arden" by Alfred Tennyson
Lorina, Edith and Alice Liddell, detail
Portrait of John Milton
George Vertue's notebook, detail
William Shakespeare
The House of Commons, 1833
The Room in Which Shakespeare was Born
Sir Walter Ralegh (Raleigh)
Eastern end of the Lower Gallery at South Kensington
A Bay in the Upper Long Gallery at South Kensington
Eastern extremity of the National Portrait Gallery at South Kensington with approaches
Portrait of an unknown woman
Welcome!
Advertisement for The Times Saturday Review
Richard II
Queen Elizabeth I
East Wall of the National Portrait Gallery, Great George St, front room (facing the fireplace)
East Wall of the National Portrait Gallery, Great George St, front room (facing the fireplace)
East Wall of the National Portrait Gallery, Great George St, front room (facing the fireplace), before removing six pictures on loan to South Kensington
West Wall of the National Portrait Gallery, Great George St, front room (wall with fireplace)
East side of the first screen in the Long Gallery facing the entrance, National Portrait Gallery, South Kensington
West side of the first screen in the Long Gallery, South Kensington
The Boyhood of Raleigh
Mary, Queen of Scots
King Richard III
The Picture Gallery at the Old Hall

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Contents

Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England

Contents

Author

PublisherPaul Mellon Centre

PublisherYale University Press

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00062.001

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-19079

Free

Acknowledgements

Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England

~~In writing this book, I have benefited from discussions with many scholars who have been exceedingly generous with their time, from the support of several award-making bodies and from the inestimable help of archivists and librarians in Britain and the United States. It is impossible to name all who have provoked me into new thoughts...

Author

PublisherPaul Mellon Centre

PublisherYale University Press

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00062.002

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-19080

Introduction

Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England

On midsummer’s day 1710, Lady Wentworth was enjoying the country air at her Thames-side property at Twickenham...

Author

PublisherPaul Mellon Centre

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.1-9

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00062.003

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-19081

Chapter subject tags:Portrait painting, BritishEngland--Social life and customs--18th centuryArt--CommissioningArt--Collectors and collecting

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Part I. Biography: System: Portrait

Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England

~~

Author

PublisherPaul Mellon Centre

PublisherYale University Press

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00062.004

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-19082

I. Spaces of Portrayal

Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England

Attempts to restore historic houses to an approximation of their original condition are now commonly accompanied by efforts not only to install ‘authentic’ fixtures...

Author

Chapter subject tags:England--Social life and customs--18th centuryPortrait painting, British--18th centuryArt and society--Britain--History--18th centuryHistoric buildings--Britain--18th centuryWalpole, Horace, 1717-1797Country homes--England--18th centuryInterior decoration--England--18th centuryReynolds, Joshua, Sir, 1723–1792Gainsborough, Thomas, 1727-1788Romney, George, 1734-1802

PublisherPaul Mellon Centre

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.13-52

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00062.005

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-19083

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II. Illustrious Heads

Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England

But no invention has better answered the end of perpetuating the memory of illustrious men, than the modern art of engraving, which I shall, without scruple, prefer to the boasted art of the Egyptians...

Author

Chapter subject tags:England--Social life and customs--18th centuryPortrait painting, British--18th centuryPortrait prints, British--18th centuryArt and society--Britain--History--18th centuryGranger, James, 1723-1776

PublisherPaul Mellon Centre

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.53-78

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00062.006

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-19084

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III. Significant and Insignificant Lives

Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England

Evelyn’s enthusiasm for sectaries, enthusiasts, imposters, conspirators and ‘bold Usurpers’, set out in the previous chapter, raises questions about portraiture as preeminently a discourse of the exemplary and virtuous life...

Author

Chapter subject tags:England--Social life and customs--18th centuryPortrait painting, British--18th centuryPhysiognomy in artHogarth, William, 1697-1764Caricatures and cartoons--British--18th centuryReynolds, Joshua, Sir, 1723–1792

PublisherPaul Mellon Centre

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.79-104

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00062.007

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-19085

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Part II. The Portrait and Its Subject

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Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England

~~

Author

PublisherPaul Mellon Centre

PublisherYale University Press

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00062.008

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-19086

IV. Dangerous Excrescences: Wigs, Hair and Masculinity

Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England

WALK AROUND THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY rooms of the National Portrait Gallery in London (where surviving Kit-cat Club portraits are exhibited...

Author

Chapter subject tags:England--Social life and customs--18th centuryMasculinity in artPortrait painting, British--18th centuryHairstyles--England--18th centuryArt and society--Britain--History--18th centuryClothing and dress--Great Britain--18th centuryHogarth, William, 1697-1764Gainsborough, Thomas, 1727-1788

PublisherPaul Mellon Centre

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.107-136

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00062.009

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-19087

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V. Going Turkish in Eighteenth-Century London: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Her Portraits

Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England

~The full-length portrait of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu attributed to Jonathan Richardson shows her regally attired in Turkish style, accompanied by a black servant, and with a...

Author

Chapter subject tags:England--Social life and customs--18th centuryPortrait painting, British--18th centuryMontagu, Mary Wortley, Lady, 1689-1762Clothing and dress--Ottoman influencesArt and society--Britain--History--18th centurySlavery in art--Britain--18th century

PublisherPaul Mellon Centre

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.141-157

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00062.010

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-19088

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VI. The Conversation Piece: Generation, Gender and Genealogy

Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England

~Ever since the pioneering work of Roy Strong in the 1960s on dynastic Tudor portraiture, it has been well understood that the relationship between the pictorial composing of portrait subjects in an illusory spatial setting, and the position in which the portrait was hung relative to the ceremonial use of internal architectural spaces, served to determine how such portraits signified contemporaneously. Strong’s examination of Holbein’s portrait of the family of Henry VIII as it must have been seen in the Presence Chamber at Whitehall is an exemplary exploration of this...

Author

Chapter subject tags:Conversation piece (Portrait painting)Portrait painting, British--18th centuryEngland--Social life and customs--18th centuryArt and society--Britain--History--18th centuryZoffany, Johann, 1733-1810Interior decoration--England--18th century

PublisherPaul Mellon Centre

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.159-175

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00062.011

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-19089

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VII. The State of a Child

Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England

Work by social and economic historians investigating demographic trends and regional histories has offered comparative views of family structures and practices in early modern Europe...

Author

Chapter subject tags:England--Social life and customs--18th centuryPortrait painting, British--18th centuryReynolds, Joshua, Sir, 1723–1792Romney, George, 1734-1802Children--PortraitsRamsay, Allan, 1713-1784Lawrence, Thomas, 1769-1830Hogarth, William, 1697-1764

PublisherPaul Mellon Centre

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.177-226

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00062.012

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-19090

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Epilogue: ‘Saved from the Housekeeper’s Room’: The Foundation of the National Portrait Gallery, London

Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England

In June 1864, George Scharf, the first Secretary and Keeper to the National Portrait Gallery, London, wrote to the chairman of the Gallery’s trustees. Summing up for the Earl Stanhope the duties that he had performed...

Author

PublisherPaul Mellon Centre

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.227-244

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00062.013

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-19091

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