Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England (Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in Britis)

Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England (Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in Britis) by Pointon, Marcia. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780300073683.

This handsomely illustrated book discusses portraiture as a cultural and political phenomenon in eighteenth-century England. Marcia Pointon offers detailed historical analyses of portraits by Gainsborough, Reynolds, Hogarth, and others, showing how portraiture of the period provided mechanisms for constructing and accessing a national past and for controlling a present that appeared increasingly unruly.