JACOBEAN ELEGANCE: The Lust for Luxury and Legitimacy with Ian George

The social upheavals of the 16th and 17th centuries in Britain brought many new families to the fore who acquired massive fortunes and a share of the vast estates made available by the dissolution of the monasteries. They rose into the ranks of the gentry and then the aristocracy. Because of Puritan influence, artists were no longer free to paint religious or biblical subjects. However, they found eager patrons in the new families who wanted their portraits painted, as well as their new houses and animals.

The Montagu family, and the important portrait of the first Lord Montagu attributed to Robert Peake the Elder in The Johnston Collection, is a classic example.

Ian George has been an art critic since 1960. His postgraduate work was in aesthetics. Since then he has served on the Visual Arts Committee of the Festival of Perth, as a Trustee of the Queensland Art Gallery and Vice-President of the Queensland Festival, had two terms on the Community Arts Board of the Australia Council and is a regular lecturer at the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of SA and the National Gallery of Victoria. In January this year he lectured there on William Blake’s illustrations to Dante’s The Inferno.

attributed to Robert Peake (circa 1551-1626), portrait of Edward Lord Montagu, 1st Lord Montagu of Boughton, 1601, The Johnston Collection (A0951 -1989)