Editing Circe (section)

===Portraits in character===
During the 18th century painters began to portray individual actors in scenes from named plays. There was also a tradition of private performances, with a variety of illustrated works to help with stage properties and costumes. Among these was [[Thomas Jefferys]]' ''A Collection of the Dresses of Different Nations, Antient and Modern'' (1757–1772) which included a copperplate [[engraving]] of a crowned Circe in loose dress, holding a goblet aloft in her right hand and a long wand in her left.<ref>Published from London, [https://www.albion-prints.com/jefferys-1772-greek-mythology-costume-print-circe-450561-p.asp p. 240].</ref> Evidence of such performances during the following decades is provided by several portraits in character, of which one of the earliest was the pastel by [[Daniel Gardner]] (1750–1805) of "Miss Elliot as Circe". The artist had been a pupil of both [[George Romney (painter)|George Romney]] and [[Joshua Reynolds]], who themselves were soon to follow his example. On the 1778 engraving based on Gardner's portrait appear the lines from Milton's ''Comus'': ''The daughter of the Sun, whose charmed cup / Whoever tasted, lost his upright shape / And downward fell into a grovelling swine'', in compliment to the charm of this marriageable daughter of a country house. As in the Jefferys' plate, she wears a silver coronet over tumbled dark hair, with a wand in the right hand and a goblet in the left. In hindsight the frank eyes that look directly at the viewer and the rosebud mouth are too innocent for the role Miss Elliot is playing.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://preraphaeliteoftheforest.tumblr.com/post/11755388956/miss-elliott-as-circe-daniel-gardner|title=Binding with Briars My Joys & Desires|website=preraphaeliteoftheforest.tumblr.com}}</ref>

The subjects of later paintings impersonating Circe have a history of sexual experience behind them, starting with "Mary Spencer in the character of Circe" by [[William Caddick]], which was exhibited at the [[Royal Academy]] in 1780. The subject here was the mistress of the painter [[George Stubbs]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Judy |last=Egerton |title=George Stubbs, Painter: Catalogue Raisonné |publisher=[[Yale University]] |year=2007 |url={{Google books |mFrO5o2X2EcC|page=482|plainurl=true}}|pages=95, 482 |isbn=978-0300125092}}</ref> A portrait of "Mrs Nesbitt as Circe" by Reynolds followed in 1781. Though this lady's past was ambiguous, she had connections with those in power and was used by the Government as a secret agent. In the painting she is seated sideways, wearing a white, loose-fitting dress, with a wand in her right hand and a gilded goblet near her left. A monkey is crouching above her in the branches of a tree and a panther fraternizes with the kitten on her knee.<ref>''The Smith College Museum of Art: European and American Painting and Sculpture, 1760–1960'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=3Yq0IRs_ZZwC&pg=PA108 pp. 108–09].</ref> While the painting undoubtedly alludes to her reputation, it also places itself within the tradition of dressing up in character.

[[File:George_Romney_-_Lady_Hamilton_as_Circe.jpg|alt=|thumb|left|[[George Romney (painter)|George Romney]]'s {{c.|1782|lk=no}} portrait of [[Emma Hamilton]] as Circe]]

Soon afterwards, the notorious [[Emma Hamilton]] was to raise this to an art form, partly by the aid of George Romney's many paintings of her impersonations. Romney's preliminary study of Emma's head and shoulders, at present in the [[Tate Gallery]], with its piled hair, expressive eyes and mouth, is reminiscent of Samuel Gardener's portrait of Miss Elliot.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/romney-lady-hamilton-as-circe-n05591|title='Emma Hart as Circe', George Romney, c. 1782 |last=Tate}}</ref> In the full-length "Lady Hamilton as Circe" at [[Waddesdon Manor]], she is placed in a wooded landscape with wolves snarling to her left, although the tiger originally there has now been painted out. Her left arm is raised to cast a spell while the wand points downward in her right.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:George_Romney_-_Lady_Hamilton_as_Circe_2.jpg|title=Lady Hamilton as Circe|first=George|last=Romney|date=23 June 1782|via=Wikimedia Commons}}</ref> After Emma moved to Naples and joined Lord Hamilton, she developed what she called her "Attitudes" into a more public entertainment. Specially designed, loose-fitting tunics were paired with large shawls or veils as she posed in such a way as to evoke figures from Classical mythology. These developed from mere poses, with the audience guessing the names of the classical characters and scenes that she portrayed, into small, wordless charades.<ref>Julia Peakman, Emma Hamilton, London 2005, [https://books.google.com/books?id=Lzn6AzBjE7EC&dq=%22pose%20plastique%22%20emma%20hamilton&pg=PA47 pp. 47–50].</ref>

The tradition of dressing up in character continued into the following centuries. One of the photographic series by [[Julia Margaret Cameron]], a pupil of the painter [[George Frederic Watts]], was of mythical characters, for whom she used the children of friends and servants as models. Young Kate Keown sat for the head of "Circe" in about 1865 and is pictured wearing a grape and vineleaf headdress to suggest the character's use of wine to bring a change in personality.<ref>[http://www.vam.ac.uk/users/node/16773 Victoria and Albert Museum].</ref> The society portrait photographer [[Yevonde Middleton]], also known as Madame Yevonde, was to use a 1935 aristocratic charity ball as the foundation for her own series of mythological portraits in colour. Its participants were invited to her studio afterwards to pose in their costumes. There Baroness Dacre is pictured as Circe with a leafy headdress about golden ringlets and clasping a large [[Baroque]] porcelain goblet.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portraitLarge/mw17333/Lady-Alexandra-Henrietta-Louisa-Haig-as-Circe|title=Lady Alexandra Henrietta Louisa Haig as Circe |publisher=National Portrait Gallery|website=www.npg.org.uk}}</ref>

A decade earlier, the illustrator [[Charles Edmund Brock]] extended into the 20th century what is almost a pastiche of the 18th-century [[conversation piece]] in his "Circe and the Sirens" (1925). In this the Honourable Edith Chaplin (1878–1959), Marchioness of Londonderry, and her three youngest daughters are pictured in a garden setting grouped about a large pet goat.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/circe-and-the-sirens-a-group-portrait-of-the-honourable-edith-c|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130419205852/http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/circe-and-the-sirens-a-group-portrait-of-the-honourable-edith-c|url-status=dead|archive-date=2013-04-19|title=Art UK}}</ref> Three women painters also produced portraits using the convention of the sitter in character. The earliest was [[Beatrice Offor]] (1864–1920), whose sitter's part in her 1911 painting of Circe is suggested by the vine-leaf crown in her long dark hair, the snake-twined goblet she carries and the snake bracelet on her left arm.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://vintage-ephemera.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/circe-1911.html|title=Vera Violetta|access-date=2019-03-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160417075726/http://vintage-ephemera.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/circe-1911.html|archive-date=2016-04-17|url-status=dead}}</ref> [[Mary Cecil Allen]] was of Australian origin<ref>There is a fuller biography in the [http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/allen-mary-cecil-5005 Australian Dictionary of Biography].</ref> but was living in the United States at the time "Miss Audrey Stevenson as Circe" was painted (1930). Though only a head and shoulders sketch, its colouring and execution suggest the sitter's lively personality.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/col/work/5828|title=Sketch: Miss Audrey Stevenson as Circe – Mary Cecil ALLEN – NGV – View Work|website=www.ngv.vic.gov.au}}</ref> Rosemary Valodon (born 1947), from the same country, painted a series of Australian personalities in her goddess series. "Margarita Georgiadis as Circe" (1991) is a [[triptych]], the central panel of which portrays an updated, naked [[femme fatale]] reclining in tropical vegetation next to a pig's head.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://origemdacomedia.blogspot.com/2010/07/goddess-series.html|title=Origem da Comédia: The Goddess Series|first=Príncipe|last=Myshkin|year=2010}}</ref>

One painting at least depicts an actress playing the part of Circe. This is [[Franz von Stuck]]'s striking portrait of Tilla Durieux as Circe (1913). She played this part in a Viennese revival of Calderon's play in 1912 and there is a publicity still of her by Isidor Hirsch in which she is draped across a sofa and wearing an elaborate crown.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://turnofthecentury.tumblr.com/image/1565153826|title=Turn of the Century: Photo|website=turnofthecentury.tumblr.com}}</ref> Her enticing expression and the turn of her head there is almost exactly that of Van Stuck's enchantress as she holds out the poisoned bowl. It suggests the use of certain posed publicity photos in creating the same iconic effect as had paintings in the past. A nearly contemporary example was the 1907 photo of Mme [[Geneviève Vix]] as Circe in the light opera by Lucien Hillenacher at the [[Opéra-Comique]] in Paris.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/charmainezoe/5362148286|title=1907 Theatre – Mme Genevieve Vix as Circe, an opera comique by the Brothers Hillenacher at the Opera Comique, Paris|date=2011-01-16}}</ref> The posing of the actress and the cropping of the image so as to highlight her luxurious costume demonstrates its ambition to create an effect that goes beyond the merely theatrical. A later example is the still of [[Silvana Mangano]] in her part as Circe in the 1954 film ''[[Ulysses (1954 film)|Ulysses]]'', which is as cunningly posed for effect.