Peeresses in Paint: Portraits of Aristocratic Women and the Question of Representation 1837-1901

Begun in the artist's studio or the domestic interior, the portraits considered in this dissertation were intended to be public statements of power and class dominance. Consequently, they must be examined in light of the relationship between political and visual representation during the period 1837 to 1901. In the newly democratized visual culture of the Victorian era, female aristocrats were more visible as public icons than their male counterparts, and served as displaced symbols of familial authority. The grand manner portraits of these "peeresses in paint" functioned simultaneously as vehicles of modernity and tradition, in order to assert both timeless prerogatives and contemporary legitimacy. The introduction of the dissertation examines the historical debates surrounding aristocratic and parliamentary reform in the Victorian period, and explores contemporary critical reactions to aristocratic portraits. Chapter one establishes the historical and visual genealogy for the dissertation, as well as providing a working definition and history of the grand manner portrait. The issues addressed include contemporary debates about the portrait as visual biography, and the conditions of the practice of portraiture. The next three chapters are case-studies of portraits by Franz-Xaver Winterhalter, Henry Tanworth Wells, and Frederic Leighton. The creation of each portrait is linked to a discreet moment of political crisis in the life of the sitter. The dissertation explicates the ways that this challenge was registered both iconographically and formally within the portrait at hand. The concluding chapter examines a John Singer Sargent portrait as an example of the retreat from the unique Victorian model of political aristocratic portraiture at the end of the century. Applying theoretical methodologies to these aristocratic portraits, this dissertation brings together wide-ranging areas of art-historical inquiry, including the examination of hitherto neglected paintings and archival sources. This approach proves my two interlocking theses: that the aristocratic portraits in question were technically and aesthetically significant paintings, and that these artworks were vital participants in the class struggles of Victorian Britain.