A Passion for Performance: Sarah Siddons and Her Portraitists

Renowned for her majestic beauty and impassioned performances, the English actress Sarah Siddons (1755-1831) revolutionized the aesthetics of eighteenth-century theater while inventing a complex public persona to promote her fame. Her flair for self-presentation was matched by the showmanship of the many artists who portrayed her.
Here three lively essays--by Robyn Asleson, Shelley Bennett, Mark Leonard, and Shearer West--explore Siddons's life and career, as well as her relationships with a number of artists. Notable among them was Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose masterpiece Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse became an icon of this great actress at the peak of her career. This lavish volume also brings together fifty-five other portraits of Siddons including works by Thomas Gainsborough, George Romney, Thomas Lawrence, and Gilbert Stuart.