ABSTRACT
The widespread fashion for the theatrical portrait, which came to the fore in England between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, is a phenomenon of great aesthetic and cultural interest. It was also a wide-ranging phenomenon, the artistic representations of the best-known actresses and actors including engravings, prints, book illustrations, sculptures, ceramics, and even playing cards, apart from painted portraits. This chapter discusses the portraits of the stars of the English theatre that fascinated audiences and critics in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, with particular reference to the ‘divine’ Sarah Siddons. The rebuilding and extension of theatres, between 1792 and 1812, exemplified by the new Drury Lane and Covent Garden theatres, had a radical impact on the relationship between stage and audience. The close link between theatre and visual arts, which developed in part thanks to stage shapes and structures, was the subject of lively debate in reviews, essays and diaries of the period.
