The Intimate Portrait: Drawings, Miniatures and Pastels from Ramsay to Lawrence
British Museum, until 31 May
In Room 90 at the BM is one of the free exhibitions the Department of Prints and Drawings do so well. This one has been organised in collaboration with the National Galleries of Scotland and was first seen at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery at the end of last year. It focuses on informal portraits made between the 1730s and the 1830s, the period often thought of as the heyday of British portraiture. There are no grand public statements: the emphasis is on private images. Here are the love tokens and the personal mementoes, the first thoughts and studies, the intimate responses of artist to sitter, assiduously collected and kept in portfolios or cabinets to be brought out — like today’s family snaps — and proudly shown to friends and relations.
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