Inelegant and addled
John Martin Robinson says sloppy labelling has let down the NPG's splendid refurbishment The 17th- and 18th-century collections on the second floor of the National Portrait Gallery have just re-opened after 'elements of refurbishment'. The rooms look splen- did, with restored cornices and handsome silk damask on the walls. The Stuart and Georgian portraits are now back on show in glorious serried ranks. At first sight, all seems well. It is only when you stop to read the information panels that you become as pop-eyed as Edward Gibbon and George III.
From time to time American professors compile jolly lists of amusing answers to history exams by their pupils. You know the sort of thing. 'Who was prime minister of Britain during the second world war?' `Charlie Chaplin.' Smile indulgently, and console yourself with the thought that even prep school boys in England would not produce such risible inanities. Just imagine such a thing. No, don't imagine; visit the National Portrait Gallery and read the new labels.
By applying the methods of 19th-century biblical scholarship to these 'information aids', you can discern different dates of composition, sources and influences; from 1920s distaste for 'trade' to up-to-the- minute Dome-speak. It is obvious that the more lucid and accurate picture labels are reprints of the old ones. These contain traces of charmingly old-fashioned euphemism and snobbery. The homosexual William Beckford, for instance, is merely said to be 'eccentric', while several artists are snootily described as being of 'humble origin'.
George Romney has the seeming double misfortune of being 'born of humble origin in Lancashire'. Dalton-in-Furness is no longer in Lancashire. It would be more informative to give the exact place and date of birth and state that he was apprenticed to the good local artist Christopher Steele (who had himself studied under Carle van Loo in Paris). Mere objective facts, such as places of birth, are not imparted by any of the labels.
Eighteenth-century architects are described as 'professional men'. By modern standards they weren't. Most of them were builders. We are glibly informed that Capa- bility Brown was a 'consultant' on land- scape gardening. The whole point of his successful career is that he was also the contractor for the places he designed and by those means amassed a fortune of £100,000.
Some of the labels contradict each other. One claims that Nova Scotia was granted to Britain under the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713; another declares that it was founded in 1749. Which? Others man- age to be wildly off-beam without being strictly inaccurate. Flora MacDonald, of Bonnie Prince Charlie fame, is declared to be the 'daughter of a Hebridean farmer'. She was married to John MacDonald of Kingburgh. Others are just wrong. The Earl Bishop of Derry is described as being `unusual' in supporting the repeal of the Penal Laws against Catholics. Such, howev- er, was the official policy of the Rocking- ham Whigs and the Grenville faction. The Marquess of Buckingham, viceroy of Ire- land, was openly pro-Catholic, married a Catholic and maintained a Catholic priest at Stowe as his librarian.
Nadir is reached in the large new intro- ductory panels where inelegant prose is matched by addled content. You can tell that these are newly written because their chatty condescension radiates New Labour cringe (in the Aussie sense) and pretend to be 'accessible' and 'inclusive'. The explana- Tou didn't answer a single question . . . well done son!' tion of Britain's rise as a great power in the 18th century contains no mention of the Royal Navy or command of the seas, nor the emergence of London as the world's entrepot and principal financial centre.
Elsewhere we can relish the creepy state- ment that 'despite opposition from the . . . Indian peoples themselves the East India Company's power continued to grow'. And then there are the pure howlers. Before the Georgian civil engineers, great public works were undertaken by 'army sappers'. Vermuyden? Myddelton? 'The Regency is associated with James Wyatt . . . in archi- tecture.' He died in 1813. The Elector of Hanover was so called because he was 'one of the princes who elected the Austrian Emperor'. The Church of England `remained the Church of the establishment if for no other reason than the bar on Catholics and Dissenters from holding pri- vate office'. The Exclusion Act was passed in 1678, 18 years after the re-establishment of the Church at the Restoration. It would be unkind to continue.
It is depressing that a national museum unveiling an expansive and prestigious pro- ject can display such an approach to the information it provides. All the labels in these galleries need to be rewritten. If the expertise is not available among the cur- rent curators why not invite outside schol- ars like Robert Beddard on Stuart Divines, or Nicholas Rodger on Georgian seamen to do the job for them?
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