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Sojourning Scots and the Portrait Miniature in Colonial India, 1770s‐1780s
Author(s) -
Coltman Viccy
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal for eighteenth‐century studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.129
H-Index - 11
eISSN - 1754-0208
pISSN - 1754-0194
DOI - 10.1111/1754-0208.12467
Subject(s) - scots , portrait , colonialism , possession (linguistics) , narrative , genealogy , history , gender studies , art , sociology , literature , art history , archaeology , philosophy , linguistics
This article seeks to extend the prevailing art histories of later eighteenth‐century portrait miniatures beyond the dominant narratives of authorship and affect. It does so by considering the social role of these diminutive objects in affirming life and liveliness by mapping consanguineal relations between sojourning Scots in colonial India and their absent mothers and sisters back home in Scotland. This gendered axis – in which the portraits are commissioned by young, unmarried men for the possession and display on the bodies of their dislocated female family members – is complemented by equivalent geographical and temporal axes.