Sr. George Bridges Rodney, Rear Admiral of the Blue 1780

Curator: Take a moment to gaze upon this stately portrait: "Sr. George Bridges Rodney, Rear Admiral of the Blue." Created around 1780, it is a fascinating print and engraving now residing at the Met. What strikes you about it? Editor: The density, definitely the density of ornamentation, the lace, the embroidery, even the stormy sea kind of fades into a backdrop *for* that lavish detail. All this production just to glorify… what exactly? Curator: Well, this "Rear Admiral of the Blue", wasn’t just *anyone*. The print reproduces an image meant to celebrate power, success—naval dominance, really. Editor: Dominance, of course, carefully stitched into every buttonhole and reflected in the labor it represents. Think of the workshops and materials needed. Beyond the engraving itself, someone painstakingly tailored that uniform! All to project unassailable authority. Curator: Absolutely, it is about projecting an image, yet there’s something almost melancholic in his gaze, wouldn't you say? Like he’s seen the cost of it all... or knows he might soon face more hardship. That faraway look— Editor: Perhaps he is pondering supply chains, the cost of wood for the masts in the ships, the labour conditions in building the Royal Navy. Curator: Ha! Perhaps. I like to think he's wondering if he left the oven on. Though more seriously, looking at those swirling lines behind him I get a strong sense of transience...even power, lavishly adorned as it may be, is just another wave passing by. Editor: The choice to depict him framed against a tempest seems to romanticise all that extraction and toil, the violence against resources and bodies to create those lovely garments he has on. Curator: True. Though I do admire how that very contrast, the stormy background versus the precise detail of the Admiral’s uniform, creates this intriguing tension. You see him poised between these realms, control and chaos. Editor: For me, knowing this portrait emerged amidst such blatant social inequality, makes that tension profoundly unsettling. It invites us to reflect not just on artistic skill but on whose stories get told and immortalized, and what, or rather who, got sacrificed for that luxury. Curator: Well said. Looking closer now, after our chat, that initially mournful gaze seems like the quiet calculation of someone in a cut-throat competitive environment; as ever the piece leaves more to contemplate than initially meets the eye.