PORTRAITURE paintings
Portraiture was the dominant genre in British painting during this period. The work of Sir Peter Lely, Charles II’s official portrait painter, revived the glamorous style of van Dyck. But many other styles were also in use, and with Hogarth in the 1730s we see a new and more modest approach to the genre.
Portraits can appear very immediate and straightforward. However, portrait painters have always been guided by the artistic conventions of the time, and need to respond to the requirements of their employers. Does portraiture reveal the values of the different sorts of patronage at work in this period, whether drawn from the Court, the new merchant wealth of the City, or the landowning, aristocratic families of the Country?
Portrait of a Lady and a Boy, with Pan by John Hayls
Two Ladies of the Lake Family by Peter Lely
The Harvey Family by Godfrey Kneller
Three Ladies in a Grand Interior by William Hogarth