‘Cartes de visite’ were the first form of affordable mass-produced photography. These images of families and friends, royalty and celebrities of the day were wildly popular during the Victorian era. Queen Victoria herself helped spread the craze by building her own collection. People collected photographs of their families and friends, royalty and celebrities of the […]
Portraying Pregnancy is a major exhibition exploring representations of the pregnant female body through portraits, over 500 years. Until the twentieth century, many women spent most of their adult years pregnant. Despite this, pregnancies are seldom apparent in surviving portraits. This exhibition brings together images of women – mainly British – who were depicted at […]
George IV is arguably the most magnificent of British monarchs and formed an unrivalled collection of art, much of which remains in the Royal Collection. As Prince of Wales and, from 1820, magnificent king, he purchased paintings, metalwork, textiles, furniture, watercolours, books and ceramics in vast numbers, many of these works by the finest artists […]
Venue: Utah Museum of Fine Arts, University of Utah Exhibition: 11 July to 8 December 2019 Symposium 8 October 2019 Power Couples: The Pendant Format in Art considers how two interdependent works, called pendants, convey meaning. The study of this popular portrait format reveals a variety of artistic strategies at play – desires to communicate social […]
Barings Bank was at one time the oldest merchant bank in the City of London and has played an important role in the development of British and international finance from the late-eighteenth to the late-twentieth century. Barings played a significant role in major historic events, such as, financing the Louisiana Purchase. This exhibition explores the […]
Venue: National Portrait Gallery, King Edward Terrace, Parkes, Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia Until Sunday 22 October 2017 This is the first exhibition to showcase the compelling watercolour images of English street people made by the itinerant English painter John Dempsey throughout the first half of the nineteenth century. Featuring 52 rarely-seen portraits, the exhibition profiles […]
The Museum of Design in Plastics has Esmée Fairbairn Effective Collections funding to lend small groups of artefacts made of horn, a natural plastic. By displaying them in different contexts, it hopes to bring the art and craft of the horner to the attention of people who have not previously considered horn in such a […]
In 2000, the Royal Society of Portrait Painters mounted a millennial exhibition entitled People’s Portraits. The idea was to represent ordinary people from all walks of life, and thereby offer a picture of the United Kingdom as it moved from the 20th century into the 21st. The resulting collection is rich in the diversity of […]
This online exhibition from the British Postal Museum & Archive explores the evolution of Arnold Machin’s classic profile portrait of the Queen. Online exhibition homepage.
