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    Conversation piece

    Retford, Kate (2022) Conversation piece. The Digital Encyclopedia of British Sociability in the Long Eighteenth Century , ISSN 2803-2845.

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    Abstract

    At around the same time as the places, practices and objects of sociability began to flourish, British portraitists started to offer a new mode of portraiture expressive of this culture. After a tentative start in the 1720s, the ‘conversation piece’ took off around 1730, thanks to artists such as William Hogarth, Gawen Hamilton, and Charles Philips. Portrayal of the sitters at full length allowed amplification of the physical gestures and interactions of sociability. Their reduced scale also meant that accompanying objects and settings could be represented in detail, facilitating the portrayal of tea parties, assemblies and card games.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): Portraiture, Painting, William Hogarth, George Vertue, Card Game, Tea-Table
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Historical Studies
    Depositing User: Administrator
    Date Deposited: 15 Feb 2022 11:04
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 18:15
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/47536

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