Families & Friends - The Conversation Piece in the 18C English Countryside

A Conversation Piece is a small informal group portrait popular in the 18C, often showing people – sometimes families, sometimes groups of friends – interacting in outdoor, garden settings.

1730s Charles Philips (British artist, 1708-1747) The Watson-Wentworth and Finch Families

1730s Charles Philips (British artist, 1708-1747) Syllabub straight from the Cow The Russell and Revett Familes in a landscape

1730 Charles Philips (British artist, 1708-1747) Outdoor Conversation Piece of Thomas Hill of Harwood and his First Family

1730s Charles Philips (British artist, 1708-1747) The Russell and Revett Familes with Fishing Rods and Game

1730s Charles Philips (British artist, 1708-1747) Family by a Lake and a Classical Pavilion

1730s Charles Philips (British artist, 1708-1747) Family by a Lake and a Classical Pavilion Detail

1730s Charles Philips (British artist, 1708-1747) Sir William Strickland and his family

1769 George Stubbs (English artist, 1724-1806) The Milbanke and Melbourne Families

1776 George Stubbs (English artist, 1724-1806) The Reverend Robert Carter Thelwall and His Family

1780 George Stubbs (English artist, 1724-1806) The Wedgewood Family

1780 William Williams (British artist) Conversation Piece, before a house in Monument Lane, Edgbaston

16C Grand Tour of Towns & Landscapes - Görlitz in Saxony, Germany.

Georg Braun (1541-1622) & Frans Hogenberg (1535–1590) German topo-geographers. 1575 City of Görlitz in Saxony, Germany.

These images of British, European, & Middle Eastern towns come from the century BEFORE The Grand Tour became a popular educational trip for the rich & the intellectually curious of Britain & the European continent.  The custom flourished from about 1660, until the advent of wide-spread railroad travel in the 1840s, when travel became accessible to a larger spectrum of the public. Similar trips across the Atlantic were undertaken from the 2nd half of the 18C, by some affluent South & North Americans.

1500s Women in Landscapes attributed to Lucas Cranach & his son & their workshops

Lucas Cranach (Northern Renaissance Painter, 1472-1553)  and his workshop  Portrait of Anna Cuspinian 1502

The Renaissance, from the 14-17C, marked a turning point in portraiture. Artists began to paint secular scenes, breaking away from the dominant religious art of medieval painters. Partly out of interest in the natural world & partly out of nostalgia for classical Greece & Rome, portraits became valued as allegorical objects & as depictions of earthly success & status. The period in Europe was the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages & modern history. The relationship between man & nature was evolving as Francis Bacon (1561-1626) promoted man as "the minister & interpreter of nature." Portraits began to depict the wealthy & the middle class in natural landscapes & in more formal garden settings, where man was obviously controlling the nature around him.
Lucas Cranach (Northern Renaissance Painter, 1472-1553) and his workshop  Young Mother and Child

Lucas Cranach (Northern Renaissance Painter, 1472-1553)  and his workshop  Portrait of Frau Reuss 1503

Lucas Cranach (Northern Renaissance Painter, 1472-1553)  and his workshop  María Magdalena

16C Garden -Woman in an Enclosed Formal Garden

1505 Jan Provoost (1462-c 1525) Portrait of a Female Donor.  Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. 

Portraits with landscape backgrounds, especially formal gardens, were not common during this period, and the artist may or may not have gone outdoors to paint these outdoor backgrounds. Early depictions of both real & fanciful gardens give us a glimpse of gardens familiar & imagined during this period of time.