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
Henry Siddons techniques from the German neo-classical school of acting, onto a British stock. The 1822 edition also draws on the "Essay on Gesture" of Michael William Sharp. He also wrote some plays; of one, "The Friend of the Family", Scott wrote, "Siddons's play was truly flat, but not unprofitable". Other pieces by him were "Time's a Tell-tale", and "Tale of Terror, or a Castle without a Spectre" (produced at Covent Garden on 12 May 1803). Henry Siddons Henry Siddons (4 October 1774 – 12 April 1815) was an English actor and theatrical manager, now remembered as a writer on gesture. Siddons