Sarah Siddons of feminine propriety. Commissioned and completed in 1784, Sir Joshua Reynolds' portrait, "Sarah Siddons as The Tragic Muse", is characterized by Reynolds' inspiration, contextualisation of the Muse, and distinctive brush work and paint palette. This portrait, as Heather McPherson writes, became the known depiction of tragedy, infused with contemporary ideas about acting and representation of the passions in Siddons' melancholy expression and deportment. Mary Hamilton's correspondence with her fiancé illuminated its seamless transition from "the artist's studio to the theatrical stage", practical venues that interlocked in the eighteenth century and formed a large part in creating the very idea of
George Henry Harlow career Harlow had made sketches of performers in the theatre, notably of the actress Sarah Siddons, who retired in 1812. Later he reworked some of these drawings into paintings such as one showing Siddons in the sleepwalking scene from Macbeth, shown at the British Institution in 1815, and another showing the letter scene from the same play. A commission from the music teacher Thomas Welsh to paint Siddons as Queen Katharine in Shakespeare's "Henry VIII". This was begun from memory, but subsequently the actress, at Welsh's request, gave the painter a sitting. While painting the portrait, Harlow decided to expand