The Victorians and Edwardians believed passionately in the historical importance of their age and wanted to record the great figures of their time. During Queen Victoria's reign (1837-1901) Britain became the world's first industrialised commercial power. This wealth, combined with the prestige of the British empire, created an extraordinary source of patronage for portraiture, and a legacy that includes the world's first dedicated gallery of portraits - the National Portrait Gallery, London. This informative and accessible guide reveals an astonishing range of styles,techniques and subjects from the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Illustrations and engaging commentaries on sitters, from Charles Darwin to Virginia Woolf, shed light on the various ways in which people chose to be presented - wherever possible using the actual words of the artists, photographers and their subjects themselves. Although Edward VII's reign lasted for less than a decade (1901-10), he oversaw not only the growth of a more democratic state, but also the development of art education and training for women artists. The Edwardian sitters featured in this book reveal the changing society that came to influence twentieth-century British portraiture.

Records a wealthy society's desire to immortalise itself in fabulous self-portraits. It found artists who succeeded brilliantly and this book, the only one devoted to the subject, records both the sitters and the work of the artists.

After years of neglect by dealers and the general public, who dismissed much Victorian and Edwardian art as trivial and sentimental, paintings of that era are now eagerly sought after. The revival of interest has resulted in dramatic price increases in the auction rooms and galleries.

Bonnets, capes, caps, shawls, bodices, and crinolines as people actually wore them from 1840 to 1914. More than 200 photos depict aristocrats and members of the middle class as well as celebrities.

Vintage photographs depict girls playing dress-up in their mothers' clothes, a boy dressed in Little Lord Fauntleroy style, and scores of other representative portraits. Captions.