The Art of the Actress

This Element looks at the art of the actress in the eighteenth century. It considers how visual materials across genres, such as prints, portraits, sculpture, costumes, and accessories, contribute to the understanding of the nuances of female celebrity, fame, notoriety, and scandal. The 'art' of the actress refers to the actress represented in visual art, as well as to the actress's labor and skill in making art ephemerally through performance and tangibly through objects. Moving away from the concept of the 'actress as muse,' a relationship that privileges the role of the male artist over the inspirational subject, the author focuses instead on the varied significance of representations, reproductions, and re-animations of actresses, female artists, and theatrical women across media. Via case studies, the Element explores how the archive charts both a familiar and at times unknown narrative about female performers of the past.