The Marble Index: Roubiliac and Sculptural Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art)

The first wide-ranging study of sculptural portraiture in eighteenth-century Britain, this book examines the significance of the bust and the statue as modes of representation within that culture. Adding a missing dimension to accounts of eighteenth-century British culture, Malcolm Baker explores how these images, seemingly so traditional in their conventions and associations, developed into such ambitious forms within a society in which many of the components of modernity were being fashioned. Exploring the relationship with painted portraits, conventions, settings, sitting, making and multiple production, the book argues that the new centrality and aesthetic ambition of the sculptural portrait were informed by Enlightenment notions of perception and selfhood. Louis Francois Roubiliac plays a central role, producing portraits of British Enlightenment figures such as Newton, Pope, Handel and Garrick, whose busts are discussed in the second part. Remarkable for their vivacity, virtuosity and power, these images show the traditional genres of the bust and statue being reconfigured for close and attentive viewing in what was becoming a modern culture.