Introduction

Any portrait must be fictitious. Not only is it at best representational of the person depicted but the image formed in the viewer’s eye is articulated by their own preconceptions as well through the transaction between artist and sitter. The face of John Wesley (1703–91), the Methodist leader, became one of the most familiar images in the English-speaking and transatlantic worlds through the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, embodying religious and moral significance. This critical survey of Wesley portraiture will examine the confusing multiplicity of painted and print portraits in their art-historical context. Biographical work is briefly summarised here and previous writers on the subject noted.