Good point -- though I don't know how much say the painter's subject got over the content and pose of the finished picture. (I don't know the history behind all these paintings, but I'm assuming the artists were flocking to get a popular celebrity to pose so that they could sell the resulting canvas rather than that the actor was commissioning dozens of images of himself.)
But the same point would presumably apply to people wanting to buy pictures *of* Garrick -- that they wanted to feel that they were seeing the 'real' man behind the greasepaint.
Garrick was a favourite of portrait painters, and one of the most frequently depicted men of the eighteenth century, probably painted more often in his lifetime than anyone in Britain except the monarch. Painters were not only attracted to his fame, but also to his famously expressive face, which made him an ideal model to convey comedy, tragedy or any other genre. On the other hand, the mobility of his expression sometimes meant that he was a difficult sitter to paint. Thomas Gainsborough reportedly flung down his brush in exasperation because the actor kept altering his expression. A satirical ‘mechanical print’ of 1845 in the British Museum’s collection depicts Garrick sitting to Hogarth in his studio. Behind the print is a disk with thirty different likenesses of Garrick that can be rotated to reveal different expressions.
And here's a case where a specific reason for painting this particular portrait is mentioned: https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2021/tomasso-the-more-a-thing-is-perfect/portrait-of-david-garrick-1717-1779 The picture was commissioned (by Garrick himself, if I am interpreting the text correctly) and painted in Rome "as a gift for Sir Richard Kaye (1736-1809), in exchange for an antique gem that Kaye had found at the Baths of Caracalla". (It looks as if that is the brown suit mentioned in the previous article which is currently in the Museum of London!)
So pictures of himself were a form of useful social currency :-D The equivalent of an autographed photo for the fans, perhaps, although presumably involving far more investment on both sides of the transaction...
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Garrick
Date: 2024-07-14 04:11 pm (UTC)But the same point would presumably apply to people wanting to buy pictures *of* Garrick -- that they wanted to feel that they were seeing the 'real' man behind the greasepaint.
An interesting mention of the artists' attitude: https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/happy-300th-birthday-david-garrick-londons-greatest-actor
And here's a case where a specific reason for painting this particular portrait is mentioned: https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2021/tomasso-the-more-a-thing-is-perfect/portrait-of-david-garrick-1717-1779
The picture was commissioned (by Garrick himself, if I am interpreting the text correctly) and painted in Rome "as a gift for Sir Richard Kaye (1736-1809), in exchange for an antique gem that Kaye had found at the Baths of Caracalla". (It looks as if that is the brown suit mentioned in the previous article which is currently in the Museum of London!)
So pictures of himself were a form of useful social currency :-D The equivalent of an autographed photo for the fans, perhaps, although presumably involving far more investment on both sides of the transaction...