Magazine Miniatures: Portraits of Actresses, Princesses, and Queens in Late Eighteenth-Century Periodicals

This essay explores images of actresses, queens and princesses in late-century periodicals. Comparing portraits of Sarah Siddons, Mary Robinson, and Elizabeth Inchbald to images of Queen Charlotte and Princess Charlotte Augusta, Laura Engel argues that periodical portraits function as celebrity pin-ups (versions of the same image) as well as markers of individual character (celebrating specificity and originality), thus participating in the creation of ideas about women’s claim to fame, legitimacy, and visibility. Readers could ‘own’ an image of their favourite player by purchasing a periodical, and could also feel connected to royal women, who resembled their most cherished theatrical stars. At the same time, the legitimacy bestowed on queens and princesses transferred visually to famous actresses who appeared in very similar costumes and poses. Looking closely at the ways in which artists employed similar iconography in these portraits, suggests ways of seeing that, Engel contends, connect to contemporary modes of visual display, particularly to the repetition and serial nature of pictures on Facebook, which promote a sense of intimacy and familiarity with the portrait’s subject that is ultimately a construction. Periodical portraits thus foreground the inherent tension between formality and intimacy highlighted in images of celebrated women.