Malcolm Charles Baker
Regents of the University of California, Riverside (Riverside, CA 92521-0001)
FA-55769-11
Fellowships for University Teachers
Research Programs
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[Grant products]
Totals:
$50,400 (approved)
$50,400 (awarded)
Grant period:
7/1/2011 – 6/30/2012
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The Marble Index: Roubiliac and Sculptural Portraiture in 18th-Century Britain
The Marble Index will be the first study of sculptural portraiture in eighteenth-century Britain, exploring the significance of the bust and the statue as modes of representation. The sculptural portrait emerged in Britain as an independent form only in the early eighteenth century but by 1750 it was being used to represent an increasingly wide range of sitters and had been given a centrality that allowed it to rival the painted portrait. The sculptor, Louis Francois Roubiliac played a key role in this reconfiguration. By looking at the bust and the statue as genres, this study will address the central question of how these images, seemingly so traditional in their conventions, developed into ambitious and complex forms of representation within a culture in which many of the components of modernity were being fashioned. As an interdisciplinary study, it sets out to add a major missing dimension to existing accounts of eighteenth-century British culture.
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