Interpreting Portraiture Collections
Beningborough Hall Case Study
Getting the Picture
This is the principal room of 'Making Faces'. The gallery has twelve eighteenth-century portraits and four interactive stations which are intended to reveal the various stages that may have gone into the commissioning and painting of an oil portrait.
These displays are supported by more in-depth thematic In Focus pick-ups on each of the key themes.http://www.npg.org.uk/live/beninfocus.asp
Through various hands-on processes, people will be encouraged to consider the production and development of eighteenth century portraits from the viewpoint of both sitter and artist.
Shopping Around
A low-tech graphic interactive communicates the commercial nature of portrait painting, with provision for visually impaired visitors.
A visitor looks at the Shopping Around 'catalogue'. The visible page is one of the raised line drawings that help make this interactive accessible to visually impaired visitors
(c) National Portrait Gallery, London
Virtual Portrait
A high-tech interactive using portraits from the eighteenth-century collection (and particularly those on display at Beningbrough) to offer visitors something of the experience of commissioning an artist and having their portrait made in eighteenth-century style.
The interactive allows visitors to select a crop, choose a personality type, and give their preferred location, indoors or out of doors. Their answers determine elements such as the background and accessories in their finished virtual portrait. The results are displayed on a framed LCD screen hung among historic portraits and can be emailed home.
The Virtual Portrait LCD screen can be seen on the wall, with the computer itself to the left hand side. Beside the computer, not visible in this image, there is a chin rest with the camera placed above it.
(c) National Portrait Gallery, London
A Portrait Sitting
This interactive allows people to compose their own portrait using a two-way mirror, costumes and props (based on portraits at Beningbrough).
This shows a visitor using the costumes and props, chosen from a wide range, to create her own portrait - there are also three different backgrounds to select from. The text encourages visitors to consider the elements of portraiture, including pose and expression, and then create their own image rather then copy an existing one.
(c) National Portrait Gallery, London
Finishing Off
This interactive uses fabric swatches to encourage people to look closely at the work of the drapery artist in Sir Joshua Reynolds's portrait of William Pulteney, Earl of Bath. This tactile activity also has a raised line drawing marking the different types of fabric to assist visually impaired visitors.
Visitors handling and identifying samples of the fabrics depicted in the portrait, and then finding them in the painting. They both discover how successful artists managed to complete so many portraits in a year, and become sensitised to texture in portraiture.
(c) National Portrait Gallery, London
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