Portrait of Charlotte Walsingham, Lady Fitzgerald 

This is a portrait of Charlotte Walsingham, Lady Fitzgerald, painted by John Hoppner, who worked in England in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Oil paint is of course the central material here, built up in layers on a canvas support. What I find most fascinating is how Hoppner uses that material to evoke other materials. Look at the dress—how the paint mimics the sheen of satin, giving the impression of wealth and status through suggestion of costly fabric. The lace trim at her wrists and collar are further testaments to skilled labor. Portraits like this were themselves commodities, produced on commission for a wealthy clientele. Hoppner and his contemporaries were participating in a sophisticated economic system, in which artistic skill, material quality, and social status were all intertwined. Understanding this context helps us to move beyond simply admiring the aesthetic beauty of the painting. It allows us to appreciate it as a product of its time, deeply embedded in the social and economic structures of 18th-century England.