What Jane Saw questions

#1

Identity three paintings whose selection for the 1813 exhibition neatly helped promote the status of the Royal Navy during the ongoing Napoleonic wars (Look for navy men in the South Room)

#2

Georgians liked to play dress-up. Identify three sitters who are not by profession, but who are nonetheless painted wearing a costume or elaborate fancy dress

#3

Identify three allegorical portraits of adults in the show. In allegorical paintings the named sitter is depicted emblematically as someone grander than themselves, usually a god or goddess.

#4

The earliest animal protection laws would not come into being until 1822. Even so, many portraits by Reynolds already feature animals in a sensitive manner. Some merely appear as accessories—perhaps as convenient bucolic symbols or as signals of the sitter’s character, wealth, or power. Isolate 3 portraits where animals are so integrated into the portrait to imply beloved pets in Georgian households.

#5

Many of the grandest families commissioned Reynolds for baby pictures of their children. He seems to have favored allegorical representations, creating a veritable nursery of gods (and demigods) out of the children of Britain’s elite. Identify three such allegorical child portraits in the show, where the identity of the young sitter is known and of high social standing—and painted with an extra dash of divine authority.

#6

So-called “fancy pictures, also termed “sentimental pictures,” idealized the working poor (see note at No. 3). Identify three further paintings (ie not No. 3) that romanticize poverty.

#7

Identify three portraits that visually stress England’s colonial reach. (Hint: You’re looking for prominent icons/things/people from elsewhere in the British Empire used for political display.)

#8

Sex in the Georgian era. Identify three paintings in the show that veritably ooze sensuality and/or contain sexually suggestive elements.

#9

The biggest celebrities of Reynolds’ era often came from the stage. Identify three portraits in the Reynolds exhibition of famous actors or performers.

#10

Reynolds alludes to literature inside his paintings, just as Austen does inside her fictions. Identify three paintings with strong literary allusions or subjects. [Hint: do not look for portraits of actual authors, but for depictions of fictional characters and invocations of literary scenes.]