The divas of the 17th and 18th centuries, the gorgeous women whose fashions were copied, portraits endlessly reproduced and private lives raked over in gossip columns, will return to centre stage in an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
The First Actresses will examine the portraits and careers of the likes of Nell Gwynn, the Covent Garden orange seller, comedian and royal mistress, to Sarah Siddons, whose performances were said to be so intense that a co-star was once said to have been rendered speechless, while members of the audience fainted in awe.
Siddons will share the limelight with 52 others, including Dora Jordan, renowned for her sweet nature, fabulous legs and for bearing 10 children by the future George IV; Lavinia Fenton; Mary Robinson, another royal mistress; and Elizabeth Inchbald, who retired from acting and became a successful playwright. The women have been captured by some of the world's most celebrated artists including Gainsborough, Reynolds, Hogarth and the caricaturist Gillray.
Their heyday began with the restoration of King Charles II, when not only were theatres reopened but women were for the first time permitted to appear onstage – some provoking outrage by wearing breeches.
The exhibition will include the portraits of two of Charles's mistresses, Gwynn and Moll Davis. The king was said to have pleaded on his deathbed to "let not poor Nelly starve". He need not have worried as she retired with a staggering £1,500-a-year pension.
The gallery will also debut a recent acquisition showing three of the most famous Georgian society ladies - Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire, Lady Melbourne, and their bluestocking friend, the sculptor Anne Seymour Damer - as the three witches from Macbeth in an amateur performance. It was commissioned from the artist Daniel Gardener by Lady Melbourne and has been accepted by the government from a private collection in lieu of death duties.
Gill Perry, co-curator of the exhibition and professor of art history at the Open University, who has been studying the lives and reputations of the stars, says there was always endless ribald speculation about their sex lives - illustrated by many cartoons in the show - and a widely-held belief that most of them had worked their way up from very low origins if not outright prostitution. In fact, many came from irreproachable backgrounds, some made spectacular marriages, and others saved and invested their earnings and became producers and playwrights when their looks faded.
The First Actresses will run from 20 October to 8 January at the National Portrait Gallery in London
