ABSTRACT
The sheer unexpectedness of such an identification being registered should cause us to speculate a little on the more routine depiction of labouring-class individuals. Reeves's portrait, we must presume, would have been properly negotiated and approved of by the sitter before Busby's book went to press. But in other circumstances, Reeves, or any other blacksmith, would have been involved, perhaps unwittingly, with a representation in which the subject was not consulted and over whose publication he had no control. We have very little information concerning how skilled artisans or members of the lower classes were studied in such cases. Under what conditions did they pose? Was payment provided? Did the artists interview them? Were their subjects easy with the prospect of being so represented? Just occasionally, the letterpress of some publications hints at other agendas, where the staffage figures normally used to represent types suddenly become individuals, resisting their inscription into generic anonymity, asserting their right to have a say in their representation. Equally, some artists obviously took considerable pains to interview their subjects and, in the fragmentary narratives they incorporated in various public and private texts, we can begin to sketch out answers to some of these questions.
