Conversation Pieces. A Survey of the Informal Group Portrait in Europe and America.

by Mario Praz

The "conversation piece," an intimate group portrait usually of small dimensions, is a genre which arose in the Low Countries, flourished in 18th-century England, and declined with the invention of photography. Professor Praz does not confine himself to tracing its history. He shows its close connection with the rise of the middle class, follows the different patterns and themes adopted by the artists, takes into account the various national developments; he explains why, for instance, the Italians mostly confined themselves to groups portrayed only down to the waist, while the Dutch and English invented the typical dramatic form of the conversation piece in which the background is no less important than the sitters -hinting, as it does, at the importance of the people concerned, their possessions, and the sources of their prosperity. Certain peculiarities of the genre are hue described for the first for example, portraits of families including deceased members, and portraits with a bust.

The various sections of the book deal with the definition of a conversation~ piece,' the family portrait in the ancient world, the group, the conversation piece indoors or out-of-doors, portraits of children or of married couples, and sporting and musical conversation pieces.

The book is profusely illustrated with reproductions of paintings from galleries and private collections all over Europe and in America. In addition to the well known masterpieces which established patterns and traditions, less well known works are included, a number of which have never been reproduced before and which were photographed especially for this book.
ILLUSTRATED with thirty-one plates in full colour and 349 half-tone illustrations.
THE AUTHOR, who was until recently Professor .of English Language and Literature at the University of Rome, is well known in Britain and America as an outstanding scholar and as a collector of Empire and Regency furniture. He is the author, among other books, of The Romantic Agony, a study of the Romantic Movement; an autobiographical volume, The House of Life; an Illustrated History of Furnishing; and Studies in Seventeenth-Century Imagery.

285 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1971

About the author

Mario Praz was an Italian-born critic of art and literature, and a scholar of English literature. His best-known book, "La carne, la morte e il diavolo nella letteratura romantica" ("The Romantic Agony" 1933) - written in 1930 - was a comprehensive survey of the erotic and morbid themes that characterized European authors of the late 18th and 19th centuries. He was Professor of Italian Studies at the Victoria University of Manchester, 1932-1934. He taught English literature at the University of Rome from 1934 to his retirement in 1966. In 1962, Queen Elizabeth II made him a Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE).
His works of art criticism include an Illustrated History of Interior Decoration, a study on Italian sculptor Antonio Canova, and numerous essays. His last residence, an apartment in Palazzo Primoli, has become a museum, and is open for visits in Rome.