No literary figure of the 18th century was more esteemed than the poet Alexander Pope, and his sculpted portraits exemplify the celebration of literary fame at a period when authorship was being newly conceived and the portrait bust was enjoying new popularity. Accompanying an exhibition at Waddesdon Manor (The Rothschild Collection), this publication explores the convergence between authorship, portraiture, and the sculpted image in particular, by bringing together a wide range of works that foreground Pope's celebrity status.Pope took great pains over how he was represented and carefully fashioned his public persona through images, published letters, and the printed editions of his works. Eaxmined alongside some of the most celebrated painted portraits of the poet, will be a selection of the printed texts which Pope planned with meticulous care. The core of the publication will consist of eight different versions of the same portrait bust by the leading sculptor of the period, Louis François Roubiliac.The marble bust had long been seen as a form appropriate for the celebration of literary fame and Pope's bust in part imitates those of classical authors whose works he both translated and consciously imitated in his own poems. More than any other sculptor, Roubiliac reqorked the conventions of the bust, transforming it into a genre that was considered worthy of close and sustained attention. Nowhere is this seen more tellingly than in his compelling and intense portraits of Pope.Based on a vividly modelled clay original, the variant marble versions were carved with arresting virtuosity, recalling Pope's own phrase, "Marble, soften'd into Life". At the same time, the image was reproduced by both the sculptor himself and by others, in a variety of materials.Multiplied and reproduced throughout the 18th century, Pope's bust was the most familiar and visible sign of his authorial fame. At the same time, it was also used as a way of articulating friendship - a constant theme in Pope's verse - and all the early versions of Roubiliac's bust were probably executed for Pope's closest friends. By bringing together the eight versions thought to have been executed by Roubiliac and his studio, and a number of other copies in marble, plaster, and ceramic, this publication will offer the opportunity to explore not only the complex relationship between these various versions but the hitherto little-understood processes of sculptural production and replication in eighteenth-century Britain.

Although the earliest records of written French date from the 9th century, it was not until the 13th century, when there was an explosion of texts in the 'mother tongue', that French became widespread as a written language. And only in 1539, by King Francis I, was French deemed the official language of the kingdom.This beautifully illustrated catalogue explores the rise, affirmation, and triumph of the French vernacular, focusing on a group of sixteen manuscripts all written in the French language between about 1300 and 1525. Because many of these manucscripts are virtually unknowna nd previously unpublished, first-hand study of them offers a unique opportunity to reassess certain approaches to later medieval French literature. Mostly illuminated, the manuscripts are widely diverse. They are written in verse and in prose. Some are translations from the Latin, others new compositions entirely in French. They treat a wide variety of subjects ranging from literature and science, to philosohpy and theology, and to history and goverment. There are some unique texts that exist only in the manuscripts included here. A significant nuber of the volumes boast royal provenance. There are signed and dated works by newly identified scribes, as well as works by famous calligraphers. Some of the manuscripts still have their original bindings.PRefaced with an introductory essay by Sandra Hindman, the catalogue divides the manuscripts into five sections: I) Literature and Science: The Rise and Affirmaton of the Vernaular; II) Philosophy and Theology: Translations and Adaptations of the Classics; III) History and Genealogy: the Nation and the Individual; IV) Women Writers and Women Bibliophiles: Memory and Self-Assertion; V) From Manuscript to Print: The Circulation of Texts and the Triumph of the French Vernacular.Published to accompany a travelling exhibition at Les Enluminures gallery in New York and in Paris as well as a colloquium at the Institut national d'histoire de l'art (INHA), this publication will shed new light on many of these themes and, it is hoped, contribute to the ongoing re-evaluation of medieval literary history and medieval art history. Each work will be catalogued with detailed scholarly descriptions and comparative material.

Until recently, the Dutch draughtsman Johan Thopas, who was born in 1626 both deaf and dumb, was only known to a small group of connoisseurs, dealers and collectors. However, his remarkable, subtle and technically refined portrait drawings on parchment deserve a wider audience. This handsome publication, the first devoted to his work, will prove to be an eye opener for many art lovers. Beginning with his earliest works (two beautiful miniatures of 1646 in the Fondation Custodia in Paris), Thopas produced incredibly refined drawings, usually with lead point on parchment. He had an almost magic control of the lead point, and his sense of texture and the way he was able to achieve this with minimal means is astounding, setting him apart from other draughtsmen in the Dutch Golden Age. Thopas was also able to capture brilliantly the characters of his sitters – such as the sulky husband and trouser-wearing wife in the 1684 companion pieces in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Apart from lead-point drawings, Thopas made several drawings in colour, on parchment and on Japanese paper. In most cases these drawings were done after life, although we do know that the large commission he received from the Bas-Kerckrinck family in Amsterdam included several drawings that were done after existing portraits. Furthermore, he produced at least one brilliant copy after a painting by Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem, Venus, Mars and Cupid, and even a painting, portraying a dead child. He must have made more paintings and certainly more drawings than the seventy we know today (all of which are catalogued and illustrated here). In this exhibition his only known painting and the one mythological drawing are accompanied by thirty of his most beautiful portraits, from private collections in the US, Canada, United Kingdom and the Netherlands, as well as well-known museums and print rooms, such as the Albertina in Vienna, the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, the Städel in Frankfurt or the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.The author of the catalogue, Prof. Dr Rudolf E.O. Ekkart, is regarded as the most important connoisseur in the field of Dutch sixteenth- and seventeenth-century portraiture and the author of many important monographs and other publications in the field of Dutch portraiture. He was Director of the Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD) in The Hague between 1990 and 2012 and gained momentum as Chairman of the Committee that carried his name and proved responsible for the return of many looted works of art that were returned to the heirs of many Jewish collectors in The Netherlands. Included in the book are Dutch and German translations of the essays.

This richly illustrated and beautifully produced scholarly catalogue of the superlative collection of Renaissance and Baroque bronze figurative statuettes from the Hill collection accompanies an exhibition of the collection at the Frick Collection, New York, opening late January 2014. Spanning from 1470 to 1740, the bronzes presented are of exceptional quality and exemplify the development of bronze statuettes from 1470 in Renaissance Italy to their dissemination across the artistic centres of Europe. The Hill Collection is distinguished by rare, autograph masterpieces by Italian sculptors such as Andrea Riccio and Giambologna, and has the most important collection of Baroque Bronzes by Giuseppe Piamontini in the world. Its holding of works by the Giambologna school is the strongest found in any single collection, with the sole exception of the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence. These evoke the splendour of the late Renaissance courts, while the richness of the international BAroque is represented by religious themes by Alessandro Algardi, northern bronzes by Adriaen de Vries and Hubert Gerhard, and a remarkable assemblage of French 16th- and early 17th-century bronzes in the classical mode by Barthélemny Prieur and from the circle of Ponce Jacquiot.The Hill Collection reveals the range of artistry, invention and technical refinement characteristic of sculptures created when the tradition of the European statuette was at its height.The catalogue includes detailed biographies of each of the artists represented, and is introduced with essays by the distinguished authors. Patricia Wengraf is one of the world's leading dealers in bronzes, scuplture and works of art, and in her particular speciality, bronzes of the 15th-18th centuries, her knowledge and connoisseurship are of world repute. Denise Allen is Curator of Renaissance Paintings and Sculpture at the Frick Collection. Claudia Kryza-Gersch, formerly at the Kunstkammer, Vienna, is an independent scholar renowned for her studies of North Italian bronzes of the 16th and 17th centuries. Dimitrios Zikos, in Florence, an independent scholar renowned for his knowledge of the Florentine archives from c. 1550 to 1740, has curate many exhibitions at the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence. Rupert Harris is the leading conservator of metalwork and sculpture in the UK.

The outstanding collection of European bronze scupltures formed by Peter Marino, which focuses especially on French and Italian bronzes of the High Baroque, includes masterpieces by some of the greatest sculptors of their age, among them Ferdinando Tacca, Giovanni Battista Foggini, Robert le Lorrain, and Corneille van Clève. This volume of the contributions to the symposium held in June 2010 testifying to the importance of the Marino Collection includes ten essays by distinguished scholars of sculpture.Charles Avery, author of major monographs on Giambologna and Bernini, discusses the impetus behind one of the most exciting models in the Marino Collection, a Hercules and Antaeus, after Maderno. Geneviève Bresc-Bautier, Director of the Louvre Sculpture Department, examines the discovery of a large number of small pieces of terracotta sculpture, thought to be from the workshop of Andrés-Charles Boulle, which was destroyed in 1720. Anthea Brook, who has published extensively on Ferdinando Tacca, considers the attribution of a pair of small Florentine bronze hunting groups in the Marino Collection, making the case for Damiano Cappelli - a bronze-casting specialist in the workshop of Tacca - to be considered as a scupltor capable of creating his own designs. Rosario Coppel investigates the impressive collection of small bronzes of the 3rd Duke of Alcalá (1583-1637), who was Philip IV's extraordinary ambassador to Pope Urban VIII and later Viceroy and Captain General in Naples. Phillippe Malgouyres, Curator of Bronzes, Ivories, and Metals at the Louvre, discusses the bronze casts after Bernini sculpture, a little-studied subject in the wide field of Bernini studies. Jeffiner Montagu, Senior Fellow of the Warburg Institute, attempts to put together and define the oeuvre of the unknown sculptor of the magnificent 15-figure group of bronze hunters, their hounds and a bull, in the Suermondt Ludwig Museum in Aachen. Independent scholar Regina Seelig Teuwen extoles Guillaume Berthelot as a sculptor of small bronzes, while Jeremy Warren, Collections and Academic Director at the Wallace Collection, discusses the challenges of cataloguing the Peter Marino Collection for the 2010 exhibition. Dimitros Zikos of the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence presents the extraordinary collection of bronzes and terracottas of Giuseppe and Ferdinando Borri. Eike Schmidt, James Ford Bell Curator of Decorative Arts and Sculpture at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, discusses the adaption of two-dimensional models in Giovanni Battista Foggini's bronze sculpture.

A masterpiece of medieval Arab metalwork revealed, shedding light on courtly life in northern Iraq under the Mongol governorship. Accompanying a major scholarly exhibition at The Courtauld Gallery, this book explores one of the most beautiful and enigmatic objects in The Courtauld’s collection: the so-called ‘Courtauld wallet’, a brass container richly inlaid with gold and silver, imitating a lady’s textile or leather bag, and probably made in Mosul in northern Iraq around 1300. No other object of this kind is known. Decorated all round with courtly figuresand on the top with an elaborate banqueting scene featuring an enthroned couple, it has long been recognised as a masterpiece of Arab metalwork. Yet, despite the superb quality of its design and craftsmanship and its status as a unique object, this exceptional metalwork bag has never been properly published. Thus it remainslittle known outside a small circle of specialists, and little understood even within that circle. Encompassing a variety of multidisciplinary essays by distinguished historians and art historians – on subjects ranging from music at the Mongol court, Mosul under Mongol governorship and Mongol marriage customs to the role of womenunder the Ilkhanids –this publication aims to explore the origins, function and iconography of this splendid luxury object as well as the cultural context in which it was made and used. It will bring together other images of enthroned Mongols with female consorts, as well as scenes of hunters, revellers and musicians in a varietyof media, including illustrated manuscripts, ceramics, textile, and metalwork. By presenting the bag alongside carefully selected contemporary material, it will provide an insight into courtly life under the Mongols in the newly conquered areas of their empire, and will also provide an unrivalled opportunity to investigate the inlaid brass tradition in Mosul after the Mongol Conquest. Objects made before and after this seismic event will be reproduced side by side to demonstrate how the Mosul metalworkers adapted their work for their new patrons.

"The artist should not only paint what he sees before him," claimed Caspar David Friedrich, "but also what he sees in himself." He should have "a dialogue with Nature". Friedrich's words encapsulate two central elements of the Romantic conception of landscape -- close observation of the natural world and the importance of the imagination. Exploring aspects of Romanticn landscape drawing in Britain and Germany from its origins in the 1760s to its final flowering in the 1840s, this exhibition catalogue consiers 26 major drawings, watercolours and oil sketches from The Courtauld Gallery, London, and the Morgan Library and Museum, New York, by artists such as J.M.W. Turner, Samuel Palmer, Caspar David Friedrich and Karl Friedrich Lessing. It draws upon the complementary strengthsy of both collections -- the Morgan's exceptional group of German drawings and The Courtauld's wide-ranging holdings of British works. A Dialogue with Nature offers the oppotunity to consider points of commonality as well as divergence between two distinctive schools.

Teeming with convulsive energy, raw brush strokes, and Fauvist colors, the paintings of Robert Qualters reflect the multifaceted and kinetic spirit of the artist himself. In these pages, the art historian Vicky A. Clark presents the first in-depth study of the art and life of this iconic Pittsburgh artist. Complemented by over eighty color images, Clark follows Qualters’s development from early childhood sketches through his recent autobiographical work. As she reveals, Qualters is truly a quotidian raconteur, who infuses allegory, narrative, and memory into his paintings of urban landscapes, neighborhoods, lunch counters, and amusement parks. Here, we witness coming of age and sexuality, economic hardship, working-class identities, death and rebirth, and many other themes, both personal and universal. As Clark shows, Qualters’s oeuvre is the culmination of a lifelong artistic journey, recalling a host of influences from Japanese prints to Matisse, Bruegel, and Rembrandt. Throughout his career, and despite the popularity of his contemporaries, many of whom adopted abstract painting, Qualters has maintained a distinctly representational style, keeping a close link to his audience through the power of visual storytelling. Robert Qualters was named Pennsylvania Artist of the Year for 2014, part of the Governor's Awards for the Arts in Pennsylvania, sponsored by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

Andrew Carnegie is remembered as one of the worldÆs great philanthropists. As a boy, he witnessed the benevolence of a businessman who lent his personal book collection to laborerÆs apprentices. That early experience inspired Carnegie to create the \u201cFree to the People\u201d Carnegie Library in 1895 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1896, he founded the Carnegie Institute, which included a music hall, art museum, and science museum. Carnegie deeply believed that education and culture could lift up the common man and should not be the sole province of the wealthy. Today, his Pittsburgh cultural institution encompasses a library, music hall, natural history museum, art museum, science center, the Andy Warhol Museum, and the Carnegie International art exhibition. In Palace of Culture, Robert J. Gangewere presents the first history of a cultural conglomeration that has served millions of people since its inception and inspired the likes of August Wilson, Andy Warhol, and David McCullough. In this fascinating account, Gangewere details the political turmoil, budgetary constraints, and cultural tides that have influenced the caretakers and the collections along the way. He profiles the many benefactors, trustees, directors, and administrators who have stewarded the collections through the years. Gangewere provides individual histories of the library, music hall, museums, and science center, and describes the importance of each as an educational and research facility. Moreover, Palace of Culture documents the importance of cultural institutions to the citizens of large metropolitan areas. The Carnegie Library and Institute have inspired the creation of similar organizations in the United States and serve as models for museum systems throughout the world.

In 1966 Mark Gambier-Parry bequeathed to the Courtauld the art collection formed by his grandfather Thomas Gambier Parry (who died in 1888). Since then, of the 28 ivories in the collection, about half have been on permanent display at The Courtauld, yet they have remained largely unknown, even to experts. This scholarly catalogue, full of beautiful new photography, is the first publication dedicated solely to the collection. There are examples of the highest quality of ivory carving, both secular and religious in content, and a number of the objects are of outstanding interest. The earliest objects date from the late 11th century.In his introductory essay, John Lowden discusses the sourcing and use of ivory in art from late Antiquity to the Modern period, comparing the properties of walrus, narwhal, African elephant and Indian elephant tusks. He examines the problems in the modern day study of medieval ivories - the principal problems being the extraordinary reticence of the sources and almost entire lack of inscriptions - and the questions of authenticity raised by copies and casts and radiocarbon dating.The ivories are a revealing tribute to the perceptive eye of Thomas Gambier Parry, a distinguished Victorian collector and Gothic Revival artist responsible for a number of richly painted church interiors in England, such as the Eastern part of the nave ceiling and the octagon at Ely Cathedral. Alexandra Gerstein introduces the Gambier Parry as a collector, not only of ivories but of Trecento and Quattrocento paintings - the area for which he is best known to day - and of 'curiosities', including 16th-century Italian maiolica, marriage chests (cassoni), medieval and Renaissance enamels, Islamic metalwork, and other decorative arts.

During the Tudor Age the South West was famed for the innovation and endeavor of its people. Devon sea dogs Drake, Raleigh and Hawkins sailed to ‘World’s End’ in their pursuit of treasure and glory, Exeter’s Nicholas Hilliard produced exquisite miniature portraits of courtiers while fellow Exonian Thomas Bodley re-founded Oxford University’s library, later named the Bodleian in his honor. These men lived during the religious turmoil and political intrigue of Elizabeth I’s reign– a time of opportunity for the merchants and traders of Devon. Many grew rich on the fruits of overseas trade and expressed their new status through fashionable houses, fine furnishings, decoration and valuable personal possessions. The demand for goods was met by a network of local craft workers: plasterers, masons, carpenters, lace-makers and goldsmiths. Aspects of their lives are revealed in this book, published to accompany the fascinating exhibition at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, which will draw together paintings, artifacts and documents from galleries, museums and record offices to tell the story of the South West and its people set against the backdrop of one of the most,evocative periods in British history. It was during the Elizabethan ‘Golden Age’ that West Country men became famous for their innovation and endeavour. Devon ‘sea dogs’ Francis Drake, Walter Raleigh and John Hawkins sailed to ‘World’s End’ in pursuit of treasure, glory and new dominions for the queen. Exeter’s Nicholas Hilliard produced exquisite miniature portraits of courtiers, while fellow Exonian Thomas Bodley re-founded Oxford University’s library, later named the Bodleian in his honour. These men achieved their fame and fortune in an age of religious turmoil and political intrigue, but it was also a time of opportunity – especially for the merchants of Devon. Many grew rich on the fruits of overseas trade and expressed their new wealth and status through fashionable houses, fine furnishings and valuable personal possessions. The demand for luxury goods for the new elite in society was met by a network of local craft workers. A recent Royal Albert Memorial Museum research project funded by The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art has combed the archives of record offices in search of information on their lives and products. Accompanying an exhibition at RAAM, this book places original manuscripts alongside the work of local goldsmiths, carpenters and masons to tell their tales. Of particular note are the silver communion cups: often fashioned from melted down pre-Reformation chalices, by leading Exeter goldsmiths such as Richard Hilliard (Nicholas’s father) and John Jones. The prosperity of South West merchants at this period fostered a sense of civic pride that was expressed through the foundation of hospitals, schools and almshouses, as well as improvements to waterways, such as the building of Exeter canal. By embracing the spirit of the Renaissance, it also became an age of scholarship and curiosity. Antiquaries such as Richard Carew, John Hooker and John Norden compiled the first regional histories and mapped the cities and monuments of the South West. And this sense of curiosity spread across the oceans. As evidenced by Drake’s circumnavigation of the globe in 1577-80, represented in the exhibition by the exuberant Drake Cup, and Raleigh’s ‘Virginia’ plantation project on the east coast of America. West Country to World’s End features some of Cornishman John White’s watercolour views of indigenous Algonquians and their settlements in the New World – rare visual traces of an extraordinary encounter between two cultures. The leading South West Tudors played out their roles against the backdrop of national and international politics. Many took prominent parts in repulsing the Spanish Armadas that threatened England’s security from 1588: the book publishes a rarely seen large-scale oil painting of Elizabeth and the Spanish Armada that captures the drama of the battle. It also explores the art of the Tudor court from the impact of Holbein – shown through stunning examples from the Royal Collection – through to the jewel-like miniatures by Nicholas Hilliard. The Exeter man’s contribution to the visual arts is celebrated in the city of his birth with portraits including Walter Raleigh, Lord Howard of Effingham and James I. Essays by leading scholars in the field of South West arts and the Tudor period edited by Professor Sam Smiles. Susan Flavin discusses developments in the decorative arts of the 16th century based on archival research, Sam Smiles writes on education and learning, Stephanie Pratt on exploration and Karen Hearn on Nicholas Hilliard.

Against the commonly held opinion that ancient Judaism was an artless culture, this sumptuously illustrated book offers new ways of looking at art in Jewish antiquity. Leading experts, under the editorship of Sarah Pearce, skilfully explore different functions of images in relation to their prohibition by the Second of the Ten Commandments. The visual world of ancient Judaism often reflects a tense confrontation between Mediterranean, artful classical culture and the image-filled, yet law-inspired biblical literature. Readers will encounter a rich collection of objects and texts analysed in different contexts, from Solomon’s Temple to late antiquity. The imageless God of monotheistic Judaism combated the polytheistic cults of Israel’s neighbours with the use of symbols. Figurative, floral and geometrical embellishments of synagogues served as decoration and not for worship. Narrative biblical scenes in the Dura-Europos synagogue played an educational and political role in Jewish society on the outskirts of the Roman Empire. Antique Jewish art exercised a profound influence on medieval Islam and even on the modern Western visual world. This book is aimed at both the scholarly world and all readers interested in religion and art.

Romans attached nuanced implications to color-terms which went beyond their literal meaning, using these terms as a form of cultural assessment, defining their social values and order. By analyzing the use and color words in specific contexts, we can gain greater insight into the Roman mind.

This is the first study to investigate the sources of the creative processes in the painting of Kazimir Malevich, from Neo-Primitivism to Suprematism, 1911-1920. These sources are found in 19th century scientific investigations into optics, especially those of Hermann von Helmholtz, the artist adapting the laws of optical light and colour and the laws of optical structures of seeing in space and in depth to his painting. Malevich’s creative processes culminated in his non-objective canvases, Suprematism, between 1915 and 1920, the painting of pure seeing.

As an American living in England, a conscious Jew who utilized Christian symbols, a skillful modeler who introduced direct carving into England, and a modernist who eventually came to dislike abstraction for its own sake, Epstein did not fit neatly into the artistic categories of his time. Apart from his still widely admired naturalistic bronze portraits, Epstein’s oeuvre remains poorly understood and his reputation is dominated by his famous Rock Drill from before World War I. As this book shows, Epstein remained an avant-garde artist throughout his life, even if he ignored modernist dogma as well as man-in-the-street prudery. Gilboa’s text reveals the man in all his genius, interpreting many works in the light of Epstein’s personal circumstances.In an atmosphere of polarized attitudes to art and polite anti-Semitism at the end of the 1920s growing rather less polite thereafter, the outsider Jew Epstein deliberately became estranged from London’s art world. He responded to society’s attitude towards him in a series of bold projects – the monumental Genesis (1930) and Primeval Gods (1931–32); the smaller carvings Chimera and Elemental (1932); Behold the Man (1934–35); Consummatum Est (1938–39); Adam (1938) and Jacob and the Angel (1940); the bronze Lucifer (1944–45) and again a carving, Lazarus (1947). One cannot ignore the symbolic names of these sculptures. The discussion in this book will reveal that in each case the name has a definite relation to the sculpture’s theme and essence, as well as to the personal concerns of the sculptor.Almost all of these sculptures that Epstein produced from the 1930s aroused a public outcry, causing one critic to state that “a new carving by Mr. Epstein – good, bad or indifferent – can still steal the headlines when criminal assault, private or political, is out of season”. It was only during the 1950s, following the trauma and emotional shock of World War II, that new requirements for the expression of ideas and emotions rather than for mere forms with which to play renewed the demand for ‘an Epstein’ and his kind of ‘content’ sculpture, mainly in public commissions. Epstein, by then in his seventies, was flooded with work, and his sculpture – which employed Christian imagery to convey universal ideas of consolation and hope to a war-weary England – became newly relevant, gaining him the status of grand old master of English sculpture.

Inspired by the recent identification of a third autograph version of Gainsborough’s masterpiece The Cottage Door, this book examines the significance of the multiple versions of designs that the artist produced during the 1780s. It demonstrates that without the pressure of exhibiting his work annually at the Academy and without a string of sitters waiting for their finished portraits, Gainsborough’s work became more personal, more thoughtful. This study of the last phase of the artist’s work is a totally fresh interpretation of not only The Cottage Door but other key works such as Mrs Sheridan and Diana and Acteon. Gainsborough’s creative energies changed around 1780. He became restless and wanted to promote his landscape painting more effectively. He started to paint coastal scenes using an innovative painting technique to depict the water and he embarked on a series of ‘fancy’ pictures that he would position him as a descendant of an Old Master tradition. He was never happy with the constraints of the Royal Academy and he was at odds with the dictatorial opinions promoted by its president, Sir Joshua Reynolds. Removing himself from the Academy enabled him finally to do what he wanted.He began to turn to portrait compositions that he had developed and refined over a number of years. With subtle alterations they could be made suitable for a variety of sitters. The subtlety of his skilled observation was less easy to accommodate in standard-sized full-length canvases and in these portraits he sometimes resorted to rhetoric gesture that fought against the closely observed likenesses in his best portraits. The margin between ‘fancy’ pictures and portraits became blurred and the categorization of some of these paintings changed while they were on the easel. Always finding composition difficult, rather than begin something new he often revisited earlier designs that had pleased him. He would paint them again and make slight changes of tone and emphasis that would radically change the concept and intention of the design. The subject matter in some of his late paintings veers towards the autobiographical and shows a certain rift between him and his family.