R.A.'s of Genius Reflecting on the True Line of Beauty, at the Life Academy Somerset House
Not on view
This print was published to illustrate Charles Molloy Westmacott's "English Spy" (1832), which describes London's art world. Here, a nude female model reclines on a draped chair sketched by Royal Academicians. Each artist's easel is initialed, allowing us to identify Benjamin Robert Haydon, Martin Archer Shee, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Benjamin West, Richard Westmacott, John Jackson, Joseph Farington, and Francis Chantrey. The "Line of Beauty," which the title evokes, was an aesthetic concept promoted by William Hogarth.