Hogarth’s Dilemma

Abstract It is surely one of the ironies-and, as I have suggested, one of the weaknesses-of Roger North’s biographical work that, despite the high value he placed on family relations, he rarely drew his brothers together for a group portrait. There was, of course, no existing biographical form on which North could have drawn, and it is also understandable that he modelled his lives of his brothers on his own experiences with them, experiences that were to a large extent separate from each other. His brother John was closest to him while Roger was still his pupil; Francis helped him to advance at the bar; whereas Dudley, with whom Roger enjoyed his most festive relationship, shared with Roger in high-spirited forays about London and in relaxed, intimate interludes with Dudley’s family in the country. But if North had chosen to draw these often diverse strands together, he would have found an analogous form of portraiture emerging in England during the years of his retirement. The ‘conversa-tion’, a group portrait depicting family members or close friends engaged in a common activity, was import d from the Continent by Philippe Mercier, a Frenchman whose polished work was soon absorbed by the more traditionally middle-class character of native English (and Dutch) painting.