Diploma Lecture Series 2012 Absolutism to enlightenment: European art and culture 1665-1765

Listening in: the conversation piece in England

Dr Georgina Cole

25/26 July 2012

Lecture summary: The conversation piece is one of the most idiosyncratic and peculiarly British painting genres of the eighteenth century. Its relatively short efflorescence, from the 1720s until the 1760s, was crucial to the development of British painting, and helped to reinforce national social and cultural values. This lecture traces the roots of the conversation piece in the imported styles of Dutch and French genre painting, and examines its adaptation to British social concerns. Examining works by Gawen Hamilton, William Hogarth, Arthur Devis and Johan Zoffany, it addresses the construction of ideals of politeness, the signifying role of spaces and objects, and the changing imagery of the family. Slide list:

1. Marcellus Laroon the Younger, A Musical Assembly, c.1720, oil on canvas, Tate 2. Gawen Hamilton, A Conversation of Virtuosis at the King’s Arms, 1735, oil on canvas,

National Portrait Gallery, London 3. L: Sir Godfrey Kneller, Sir John Vanbrugh, 1704-10, oil on canvas, National Portrait Gallery;

R: Peter Lely, Portrait of a Lady, oil on canvas, c.1665, Fitzwilliam Museum 4. Gawen Hamilton, A Conversation of Virtuosis at the King’s Arms, 1735, oil on canvas,

National Portrait Gallery, London 5. Joseph Van Aken, An English Family at Tea, c. 1720, oil on canvas,Tate 6. Philip Mercier, The Schutz Family and their Friends on a Terrace, 1725, oil on canvas,Tate 7. William Hogarth, An Assembly at Wanstead House, 1728-31, oil on canvas, Philadelphia

Museum of Art 8. William Hogarth, The Strode Family, c. 1738, oil on canvas, Tate 9. Thomas Gainsborough, Mrs and Mrs Andrews, c.1750, oil on canvas, National Gallery,

London 10. Arthur Devis, Robert Gwillym of Atherton and His Family, 1745-47, oil on canvas, Yale

Center for British Art 11. Johan Zoffany, Sir Lawrence Dundas with his Grandson, 1769-70, oil on canvas, The

Zetland Collection 12. Johan Zoffany, The Bradshaw Family, c.1769, oil on canvas, Tate 13. Johan Zoffany, John, Fourteenth Lord Willoughby de Broke and his Family, c.1766, oil on

canvas, J. Paul Getty Museum 14. Johan Zoffany, The Sharp Family, 1779-81, oil on canvas, Private collection

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Reference:

Ellen D’Oench, The Conversation Piece: Arthur Devis and his Contemporaries, New Haven, Yale

U.P., 1980

Mario Praz, Conversation pieces: a survey of the informal group portrait in Europe and America,

Penn State, 1971

David Solkin, Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century

England (New Haven: Yale University Press, a993)

Kate Retford, “From the interior to interiority: the conversation piece in Georgian England”, Journal of Design History 20, no. 4 (2007): 291-307 Shearer West, “The public nature of private life: the conversation piece and the fragmented family”, Journal of Eighteenth-Century Studies 18, no. 2 (1995): 153-172

Gawen Hamilton, A Conversation of Virtuosis at the King’s Arms, 1735, oil on canvas, National Portrait Gallery, London

William Hogarth, The Strode Family, c. 1738, oil on canvas, Tate

Arthur Devis, Robert Gwillym of Atherton and His Family, 1745-47, oil on canvas, Yale Center for British Art

Johan Zoffany, John, Fourteenth Lord Willoughby de Broke and his Family, c.1766, oil on canvas, J. Paul Getty Museum

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