Faces from the North East’s past have joined a painting by portrait artist Pierre Mignard on display on Tyneside as part of the National Gallery Masterpiece Tour.
Mignard’s The Marquise de Seignelay (1691) will be at South Shields Museum & Art Gallery until November 7.
The Masterpiece Tour brings works from the national collection to audiences across the UK and South Shields is one of just five partner venues selected to take part.
The painting is accompanied by a selection of portraits from the collections of North East Museums.
Among those keeping Mignard’s masterpiece company is Dolly Peel (1782–1857), the South Shields woman who protected sailors from being press-ganged into the Royal Navy. After her husband and son were forced into service during the Napoleonic Wars, Peel stowed away aboard their ship and, when discovered, was put to work tending sick and wounded sailors.
Other local faces include Newcastle twins Winifred and Leonora Reid, painted aged nine in 1920 by Thomas Bowman Garvie, a Morpeth-born artist whose subjects also included Lord Percy and Lord Armstrong; and South Shields-born poet, novelist and playwright James Kirkup (1918–2009), who wrote more than 45 books and spent 30 years living and teaching in Japan. Ralph Hedley, renowned for his paintings of everyday life on Tyneside, is represented by A Girl in Costume Knitting.
The exhibition also features James Ward RA’s portrait of Michael Bryan (1757–1821), the Newcastle-born art dealer, collector and art historian; Charles Goldsborough Anderson’s portrait of his wife Mary Alice Moberly, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1900; and Cowan Dobson’s portrait of Lady Hélène Paris Chapman, who lived in Harton and Cleadon and played a prominent role in South Shields civic life.
South Shields previously hosted a Claude Monet painting from January-March as part of the Masterpiece Tour.
The new exhibition, named Mignard: The Power of Posing, explores the power of portraiture and how artists use pose, clothing, expression and setting to communicate identity, status and personality.
Visitors are invited to look beyond the surface of a portrait and discover the stories hidden behind an artwork.
Alongside the exhibition is a collection of original poetry inspired by The Marquise de Seignelay (1691). The works were created by young people from the New Writing North Writers’ Group as part of a sensory writing competition celebrating the arrival of the masterpiece.
The exhibition also features an interactive Selfie Station, where visitors can explore a wardrobe of costumes and accessories and transform themselves into a masterpiece.
Keith Merrin, director of North East Museums, said: “We are delighted to welcome another masterpiece into South Shields Museum & Art Gallery as part of the National Gallery Masterpiece Tour.
“This partnership gives people across the North East the opportunity to experience an internationally significant work of art on their doorstep.”
