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Description: | There are 10,000 portraits in the Primary Collection, the most comprehensive of its kind in the world shows the most influential characters in British history portrayed by the finest artists of their generation, with a further 320,000 in the archive including works by Holbein, Van Dyck & Reynolds, through Gainsborough, Millais & Tissot, to Cecil Beaton, David Bailey & Patrick Heron. Collection includes paintings, sculptures, drawings, engravings and photographs demonstrates the history of British portraiture from its beginning, through the contortions of caricature and the crisis caused by the advent of photography, to the edge of abstraction. The online database contains information on 54,267 works of which 31,893 are illustrated.
The Archive reference collection contains approximately 80,000 prints and drawings, including silhouettes, caricatures, and small groups of paintings, miniatures, medallions and related items based on the work of the first Director, Sir George Scharf, who filled over 200 sketchbooks with pencil drawings of portraits held in private collections and acquired large numbers of portrait prints. The collection is an unparalleled national iconography, covering five centuries of British portraiture and including a significant number of original portraits in a variety of media. It records the process of making portraits through preparatory studies and working drawings, the production of enamel and miniature copies is documented by squared up drawings, and prints. The reference collection has engraved portraits of lesser figures in British history and records many portraits that no longer exist, several groups of portraits by significant 17th century print-makers, including Wenceslaus Hollar, William Faithorne, early mezzotint printer-publishers include Alexander Browne and John Smith, significant holdings of 18th and 19th century prints including William Daniell after portraits by George Dance and Richard James Lane and 20th century prints including works by Francis Dodd, Edgar Holloway and William Strang. There are portrait prints and extra-illustrations, substantial sets, most notably by Granger's A Biographical History of England from Egbert the Great to the Revolution which was extra-illustrated by Dr William Fleming, the Diaries of Fanny Burney extra-illustrated by Frederick Leverton Harris and an illustrated edition of the Dictionary of National Biography assembled from the print collection of J.H. Macdonnell. The collection is rich in satirical prints and caricatures including James Gillray and James Sayers. There are profile portraits by members of the Dighton family and sets of prints published in satirical magazines including a near complete set of The Period and prints from Vanity Fair.
There are several important late 19th and 20th century collections of drawings including pen and ink caricatures by Harry Furniss and Sir Leslie Ward, sketchbooks and working drawings of Powis Evans, known as 'Quiz', a group of original cartoons by Sir Bernard Partridge drawn for Punch between 1902 and 1942, and works by Anthony Wysard and Robert Sherriffs. Also collections documenting work practices of artists including a group of squared up pencil drawings by the early 19th century enamellist Henry Bone, two 1930s albums of ephemera by Fred Roe, and the 'television sketchbooks' of Cecil Beaton. Also the work of the 3rd Marchioness of Waterford in a watercolour sketchbook of Highcliffe Castle and a group of oil portraits painted by Rachel ('Ray') Strachey of the Bloomsbury group.
Silhouettes of the 19th century are represented by a collection including Augustin Edouart, and 20th century by Hubert Leslie. Other forms of portraiture include medals, miniatures, seals, medallions and death masks. Approximately 21,000 miscellaneous loose engravings and drawings are arranged alphabetically by sitter name.; National Portrait Gallery | Source: | Cornucopia - Discovering UK Collections | Address: | St Martin's Place
London London United Kingdom,
WC2H 0HE | FAX: | 020 7306 0056 | Telephone: | 020 7306 0055 | Identifier: | oai:www.cornucopia.org.uk:5929 | Go to resource |
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