ABSTRACT
‘Give me’, prayed Samuel Richardson's Pamela, ‘give me, good God, an increase of humility and gratitude’ (quoted p. 31). Although Mr B could not furnish such divinely dispensed gifts, he did shower her with jewels, clothes and books, thus transforming this comely servant into a property owner who wielded power through her new possessions. Nevertheless, her own beauty meant that she herself became an exceptionally fine item to be displayed, discussed and evaluated by her master and his friends. As readers of Marcia Pointon's previous studies will have anticipated, her latest book exploring the complex relationships between women, possession and culture in eighteenth-century England is replete with literary as well as visual vignettes. Pointon is in the vanguard of the new wave of interdisciplinary art historians, who draw on their extensive knowledge of a broad cultural background to show how paying attention to pictures enriches our appreciation of the political, religious, gender, scientific, economic and other strands woven into our past. In Strategies for Showing, by focusing on women not merely as objects of possession but also as possessors of objects, Pointon moves beyond simplistic feminist analyses to expose the gendered complexities of ownership in a society hierarchically structured by material wealth.
