Reynolds Portrait
Sir Joshua Reynolds painted his famous portrait, "Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse," in 1784, and signed it on the hem of her dress, "for," he told her, "I have resolved to go down to posterity on the hem of your garment."
In 1950, Joseph Mankiewicz used the portrait extensively in All About Eve. The portrait itself is hung at the top of the entrance staircase to Margo's apartment where it is seen at various times throughout the party scene, from Addison and Claudia's arrival to the close-up of it with which the scene ends. Additionally, he invented the (then) fictitious Sarah Siddons Society and its award, which is a statuette modeled upon the painting. The film opens with a close-up of the award, and ends with Phoebe holding it.
In 1957, Bette Davis posed as Sarah Siddons in a re-creation of the painting staged as part of the Pageant of the Masters.
Read more about this topic: Sarah Siddons
Famous quotes containing the words reynolds and/or portrait:
“If you have great talents, industry will improve them: if you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency.”
—Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792)
“The explanation of the propensity of the English people to portrait painting is to be found in their relish for a Fact. Let a man do the grandest things, fight the greatest battles, or be distinguished by the most brilliant personal heroism, yet the English people would prefer his portrait to a painting of the great deed. The likeness they can judge of; his existence is a Fact. But the truth of the picture of his deeds they cannot judge of, for they have no imagination.”
—Benjamin Haydon (1786–1846)