|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
| You are in National Portrait Gallery | Research | 18th and 19th Century Caricatures and Portrait Prints | |||||||||
  |
|
NPG D12460 |
18th and 19th Century Caricatures
and Portrait Prints
Contents |
|
NPG D12042 |
Introduction In addition to a primary collection of portraits, the National Portrait Gallery holds outstanding reference collections of photographs, prints and drawings. The reference collections complement and provide a rich context for the main collection. They represent a vast visual resource for all aspects of British portraiture. They also record the likenesses of many notable people who are not included in the main collection. |
|
NPG D10726 |
The Gallery has a commitment to improve public access to this important resource, which represents 220,000 photographs and negatives and 80,000 prints and drawings. With the aid of a generous grant from the Department of Culture Media and Sport it has begun a two-year digitisation project. This will provide access to approximately 5,000 photographs and negatives from the Bassano Studio and 4,000 caricatures and portrait prints of the late 18th and early 19th centuries from eight discrete collections held by the Heinz Archive & Library. |
|
|
Caricatures Three collections of caricatures have been digitised, the most significant of which is a set of 840 etchings by James Gillray (1757-1815). As historical evidence these images counter-balance the official portraits of politicians and the monarchy in the period 1780-1810 in much the same way that the drawings of Gerald Scarfe (who is represented in the primary collection) provide a different way of looking at public figures today. 150 satirical political etchings by Gillray's contemporary James Sayers (1748-1823) have also been digitised, together with 200 caricatures by Robert Dighton senior and his sons (one of the most notable artistic families of the Regency period). The Dighton studies, less harsh than Gillray, established a tradition from which are descended the profiles published in Vanity Fair during the late 19th century. |
|
NPG D12068 |
Portrait prints Amongst the collections of portrait prints that have been digitised are a group of over 200 soft-ground etchings by William Daniell after George Dance (1741-1825). These portraits complement the Gallery's primary collection holdings of 37 original drawings by Dance and 12 preparatory tracings by Daniell. A volume of 20 striking mezzotint heads by and after Thomas Frye (1710-1762) has also been digitised and a collection of 95 mezzotints by William Say (1768-1834) will follow. |
|
NPG D1656 |
Extra-illustrated volumes During the second year of the project, two finely bound sets of extra-illustrated or 'grangerised' volumes are to be digitised. These sets derive from the 18th and 19th century fashion for collecting portrait and other engravings and are named after the Reverend James Granger whose A Biographical History of England from Egbert the Great to the Revolution (1769) provided a model and framework for extra-illustration. 1850 portrait prints are contained in a set of Henry B. Wheatley's London Past and Present (1891) and a further 2,700 engravings in a 25 volume compilation of the diaries and letters of the novelist Fanny Burney, Madame d'Arblay (1752-1840). This latter collection, one of the largest such in the Archive & Library, illustrates many of the historical figures and events described by Fanny Burney in her account of social and court life during the reign of King George III and her travels on the continent. |
|
NPG D10881 |
Future developments This project is due to end in April 2004 but the collections described above are being made available on the NPG website as soon as they have been digitised. The mezzotints by William Say will be available in the spring of 2003, followed later in the year by the engravings in Wheatley's London Past and Present, and, finally, a selection of portraits contained in the extra-illustrated diaries and letters of Fanny Burney. Gillray's caricatures will be featured in the new Regency Gallery, which opens in May 2003. Subject to the availability of funding, the Gallery intends to continue the task of digitising its reference collections beyond April 2004 in order to improve public access to this important resource. |
|
NPG D9748
NPG D12461 |
Access
to the collections
|
|
home | search the collection | what's on? | about the gallery | visitor information | npg around the country | search the website education | research | publications | picture library | gift & bookshop | membership | sponsorship | venue hire | press |
||
All images and text are subject to copyright
protection. 22 November 2008 |
||
|
Comments and suggestions National Portrait Gallery, St Martin's Place, London WC2H 0HE. Tel: 020 7306 0055 |
