A Passion for Performance: Sarah Siddons and Her Portraitists

Bennett, Shelley; Leonard, Mark; West, Shearer

ISBN 10: 0892365579 / ISBN 13: 9780892365579

Published by Oxford University Press, 2001

About this Item

Seller Inventory # U9780892365579

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Passion for Performance: Sarah Siddons and Her Portraitists
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0892365579
• ISBN 13: 9780892365579
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1751415907.
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: 47123757
• Signed: 7/2/2025 12:25:07 AM
• Seller catalogs:
  • 1
  • U
  • 9780892365579

About this title

Synopsis

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.

About the Author

Robyn Asleson, research associate at the Huntington Library, San Marino, California and author of Albert Moore: The Analysis of Beauty, Shelley Bennett, curator at the Huntington and author of Thomas Stothard: The Mechanisms of Art Patronage in England, Mark Leonard and Shearer West.