concept:era early modern
Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse
Oil on canvas (1784) by Joshua Reynolds. Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California. The actress Sarah Siddons depicted as the personification of Tragedy, enthroned above personifications of Pity and Terror.
Scholarly Significance
Reynolds's programmatic masterwork demonstrating how portraiture can aspire to Grand Manner history painting. Canonical statement of 18th-century British academic painting theory.