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lordansketil · 2 months ago

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Since all the contemporary depictions of George IV was idealised in some way, how do you imagine him when you write him? Do you envision him as an actor who portrayed him? How about the more realistic sketches/accounts of how he looked? Do you base your descriptions on accounts from when he lived? Is it a mixture of all?

So, the starting place for figuring out what George IV looked like is about finding a balance between portraiture and caricature, but that's not all there is to it. Many of his earlier portraits (from his twenties to forties) are not as idealised and there are portraits of him by more amateur artists as well that do not flatter him as much. It's always worth remembering that Prinny was twenty-nine when Gillray's 'A Voluptuary Under the Horrors of Digestion' was published.

The more famous paintings of him were shown at the Royal Academy and reviewed (and the critics were very ready to say if they felt a portrait wasn't true to life). So you can look up what his contemporaries thought of various portraits.

Thomas Moore described this 1815 portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence as a "lie upon canvas", but William Hazlitt's review is delightful:

"Sir Thomas Lawrence had with the magic of his pencil recreated the Prince Regent as a well-fleshed Adonis of thirty-three; and... we could not... but derive a high degree of goodnatured pleasure from imagining to ourselves the transports with which his Royal Highness must have welcomed this improved version of himself. It goes beyond all that wigs, powders and pomatums have been able to effect for the last twenty years. Talk of the feelings of Bonaparte as he re-entered the Tuileries - psha! nonsense! Think of the feelings of the Regent when he saw himself in this picture!"

It is actually possible that a couple of his first portraits as Prince Regent were slightly less idealised than they might otherwise have been because he was anxious and ill for a lot of 1811 and sources say he lost a great deal of weight during that time due to stress, although he put it all back on and then some after he hurt his ankle in 1812 and had his first bout of gout.

I think it's worthwhile looking at how artists other than Lawrence depict him in his late forties and fifties.

You can see how broad his face is and how he's using his cravat and high shirt points to conceal his double chin and you can piece together a picture of his features based on what's carried across. In the central picture Hoppner even gives his stomach some prominence.

Now, going back to just the features of the Lawrence portrait rather than the obviously false figure, you can see his round face, low set ears, lips, the dimple he turns away from the viewer, the shape of his brows, the set and colour of his eyes, and the double chin pushing out his stock, are pretty consistent with other portraits drawn from life. You can reference what he looked like when he was younger as well. The flattering light probably obscures crow's feet, but people who carry a lot of weight in their face often look younger than they are. It's his neck and shoulders that have been distorted to make him seem more slender.

So portraits of George IV are actually a pretty good way to see what his features looked like and what he wore, provided you look at multiple artists and take things with a grain of salt. What they're not good for, by and (cough) large, is getting an accurate idea of his figure. For that I mostly have to rely on a few sketches, caricature, and contemporary descriptions.

I've posted Wilkie's sketches and a couple of descriptions of him when he was younger, but let's have some descriptions of him in middle age. Here's Thomas Creevey:

"He was in his best humour, bowed and spoke to all of us, and looked uncommonly well, though very fat. He was in his full field marshal's uniform. He remained quite cheerful and full of fun to the last - half past twelve - asked after Mrs Creevey's health, and nodded and spoke when he passed us."

The Earl of Albemarle, who played with Mrs Fitzherbert's ward, Minnie Seymour, when he was a boy, describes him vividly:

"His appearance and manners were both of a nature to produce a lively impression on the mind of a child - a merry, good-humoured man, tall though somewhat portly in stature, in the prime of life, with laughing eyes, pouting lips; and a nose which very slightly turned up, gave a peculiar poignancy to the expression of his face. He wore a well-powdered wig, adorned with a profusion of curls, which, in my innocence, I believed to be his own hair, as I did a very large pigtail appended thereto. His clothes fitted him like a glove, his coat was single-brested and buttoned up to the chin. His nether garments were leather pantaloons and Hessian boots. Round his throat was a huge white neckcloth of many folds, out of which his chin always seemed to be struggling to emerge.

No sooner was His Royal Highness seated in his arm-chair than my young companion would jump onto one of his knees, to which she seemed to claim a prescriptive right. Straightaway would arise animated talk between 'Prinny and Minnie' as they respectively called themselves. As my father was high in favour with the Prince at the time, I was occasionally admitted to the spare knee and a share in the conversation, if conversation it could be called, when all were talkers and none listeners."

Here's the Grand Duchess of Oldenberg, who pretty much hated him at first sight, on his manner and appearance. She acknowledges his good looks but deplores his overweight figure and efforts to flirt with her:

"Handsome as he is, he is a man visibly used up by dissipation and rather disgusting. His much boasted affability is the most licentious, I may even say obscene, strain I have ever listened to. You know I am far from being puritanical or prudish; but I avow that with him... I do not know what to do with my eyes and ears - a brazen way of looking where eyes should not go."

Lady Bessborough writes to her lover about how she had to beat him off with a metaphorical stick as he tries to woo her with a change in government and grovelling on the floor:

"He has kill'd me--such a scene I never went thro': his manner to you was to open the most Vehement Tirade... then a list of your inconsistencies... I stared and he went on, and after another long tirade threw himself on his knees, and clasping me round, kiss'd my neck before I was aware of what he was doing. I screamed with vexation and fright; he continued sometimes struggling with me, sometimes sobbing and crying... then mixing abuse of you, vows of eternal love, entreaties and promises of what he would do--he would break with Mrs. F and Ly. H., I should make my own terms!! I should be his sole confidant, sole advisor--private or public--Mr Canning should be prime minister (whether in this reign or the next did not appear); then over and over and over again the same round of complaint, despair, entreaties, and promises... and then that immense, grotesque figure flouncing about half on the couch, half on the ground... I have not room or time to tell you half what passed. You know when he came; he had the conscience to stay til eight! ...After telling him for two hours that I never could or would be on any other terms with him than the acquaintance he had always honour'd me with, we came to a tolerably friendly making up and he kept me two more telling me stories..."

In terms of writing him, all of this makes for lots of material to draw on. His personality comes across very strongly and most people who met him wrote about him because of who he was. I always laugh when I read about Mrs Creevey, who had displeased him by leaving the Pavilion early two nights before, making him "a curtsey perhaps rather more grave, more low and humble than usual (meaning--'I beg your pardon dear, foolish, beautiful Prinny, for making you take the pet') and he put out his hand." Taking the pet meant having a sulk.

All the descriptions of him are so memorable, I don't find it too difficult to piece it all together. I guess one difficult thing is exactly how heavy he was at various points since his weight is obscured in paintings and exaggerated in caricature. But there's the 17 stone measurement from the 1790s and his 50 inch coronation waist, so that's a good basic guideline. There are records of how often his clothes were taken out. He was fat. Everybody knew it. A pro-government journalist covering the Ascot Races in 1828 even frames his size as a good thing:

"It cannot be denied that the popularity of these races arises more from the sanction afforded them by his Majesty, than from the mere running. Horses may be seen every day, but Kings are scarce; and the sight of one is something to talk of, and is recompense for an immensity of fatigue and expense. Of the thousands congregated at least three out of every five came to see the King; and it is a fortunate circumstance for his admiring subjects, that the Royal Person is sufficiently bulky not to be mistaken for that of any less personage."

So, I guess in a very roundabout answer to your question, I try to describe him based on the souce material available. My Prinny is a character, of course, and I take a lot of liberties with him, but I try to get across what he was like in looks and personality. I always recommend reading books about him if you're interested because he really was Like That and the more you know about him the more Like That he becomes.

Thanks for the ask, Nonny!

#george iv #c&c #art #quote #i feel like maybe i could have answered this in more of an authorial way but oh well show your working right?#i have spent... way too much time looking a pictures of prinny haha #i would have put some caricatures in here but i ran out of space #asks #let me know if this is too long i can read more it

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