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 Francis Joseph a constant exhibitor both there and at the British Institution. In 1797 he painted "Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse". In 1811 the British Institution awarded him a premiums for his "Return of Priam with the dead body of Hector", and again in 1812 for his "Procession to Calvary". Joseph painted "fancy" subjects, and made designs for book illustrations, but is best known as a portrait-painter. His portraits both in oil and miniature are numerous, and some of them have been engraved. His portraits of Spencer Perceval, painted in 1812, and Sir Stamford Raffles (1817) went to the National Portrait