DORSET
COUNTY
MUSEUM
Press Release
Georgian Faces: Portrait of a County
A new exhibition at Dorset County Museum
15 January to 30 April 2011
Dorset County Museum is proud to announce an important exhibition, Georgian
Faces: Portrait of a County, which opened on 15 January 2011. It includes over
sixty, mostly previously unseen, portraits of the people who shaped Dorset during the
eighteenth century.
The catalyst for the exhibition was provided by the Museum’s recent acquisition of
George Romney’s portrait of the Reverend Thomas Rackett as a young boy; a purchase
made possible by the generosity of the Art Fund, HLF South West and local support.
For the past year, curator Gwen Yarker (formerly of the National Maritime Museum)
has been selecting portraits for the exhibition from all over Dorset and further afield.
Some paintings are coming on loan from national institutions, but the majority come
from private collections.

The exhibition shows portraits by many of the important portrait artists of the
eighteenth century, including Sir Joshua Reynolds, George Romney, Thomas
Gainsborough and Allan Ramsay. The exhibition also throws a spotlight on Thomas
Beach, who was born at Milton Abbas, Dorset, trained with Reynolds and worked as a
portrait painted in London, Bath and the West Country.

The exhibition provides the first opportunity for William Hogarth’s portrait of Thomas
Coombes, a Dorset boatman aged 108, to be exhibited for over 100 years. Hogarth’s
father-in-law, the famous decorative painter Sir James Thornhill, was a native of the
county who retired to Dorset in the 1720s.

George III visited Weymouth for his health following his first attack of porphyria. From
1789 to 1805 he regularly stayed in the town essentially requiring the court to relocate
to the Dorset coast every year. From the 1790s the threat of invasion meant a local
volunteer force was created. Portraits of several of its officers painted by Dorset-born
Thomas Beach feature in the exhibition.

Portraits of Poole’s merchant princes reveal the riches gained from cod fishing and fur
trading with Newfoundland. A highlight is Thomas Frye’s unpublished portrait of rich
Poole merchant Sir Peter Thompson, now in Poole Museum. Thompson’s portrait came
to light when Gwen Yarker was cataloguing in Dorset for the Public Catalogue
Foundation.

The exhibition shows that Dorset was not an isolated rural county, but that many of its
residents, especially the Reverend Thomas Rackett and his circle, brought the latest
thinking, ideas and intellectual developments in London to rural centres such as
Blandford. They in turn returned to the capital with their local discourses in natural
philosophy, antiquarianism and archaeology.

Georgian Faces also includes a series of cut-out silhouettes produced by George III’s
daughter, Princess Elizabeth, during her friendship with local diarist and botanist Mary
Frampton.
Quotations
A lender observes :
“it is instructive to see our pictures among their contemporary Dorset friends and
neighbours”.
Exhibition curator Gwen Yarker comments :
“ This is a wonderfully collaborative project incorporating so many people including
local and national museums, private lenders, sponsors, local businesses and a huge
army of enthusiastic volunteers.”
“The little known portrait of Dorset boatman, Thomas Coombes, aged 108
painted by William Hogarth in 1742 powerfully contrasts with those of the
aristocrats, landowners and merchants in the exhibition.”
“With a budget of only £1000 we are enormously indebted to our sponsors Axa
Art Insurance Limited, Duke’s of Dorchester, Fine Art Auctioneers, Farrow & Ball,
R. K. Harrison Group Limited, Humphries Kirk, as well as trusts. Without their
support this remarkable exhibition would not have been possible.”
“With an emphasis on the importance of the sitters the exhibition offers a
wonderful variety of portrait loans from local museums, national institutions with
over 40, many previously unseen, from private collections, all telling the story of
Dorset in the eighteenth century.”
The exhibition is being generously supported by local businesses including R.K.Harrison
in partnership with AXA Art, HY Duke & Sons of Dorchester, Humphries Kirk and
Farrow & Ball, several trusts and private donors. NADFAS is also generously supporting
the exhibition, through both the Wessex region and the local Dorset County association
based in Dorchester. Its team of volunteers who look after the museum’s art collection
are all very much involved in researching, designing and many other aspects of the
exhibition.
A fully illustrated catalogue of the exhibition written by exhibition curator, Gwen
Yarker, is available with a foreword by HRH The Duchess of Cornwall and funded by
the Paul Mellon Centre for British Studies in Art.
EXHIBITION DETAILS
Georgian Faces: Portrait of a County
15 January to 30 April 2011
Dorset County Museum, Dorchester, Dorset
Tickets £6.50, Concessions £5.00
www.dorsetcountymuseum.org
Tel 01305 262735
For further information please contact: Rachel Cole on 01305 262735 or
email rachel@dorsetcountymuseum.org.
Alternate contact (Thursdays and Fridays): Elita Kirby on 01305 262735 or
email Secretary@dorsetcountymuseum.org
For a list of places to stay in and around Dorchester please contact:
Dorchester Tourist Information Centre on 01305 267992 or email
Dorchester.tic@westdorset-dc.gov.uk
Dorset County Museum is supported by Dorset County Council
Dorset County Museum High West Street Dorchester Dorset DT1 1XA Tel: 01305
262735
www.dorsetcountymuseum.org
Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society Company registered in England No. 3362107. Registered Charity No.
1062400
Thomas Beach (1738-1806),
Rebecca Steward (1766-1859), 1783, Dorset Natural
History and Archaeological Society.