Most famous as the mistress of Horatio Nelson, she is something of a historical caricature. If a novelist concocted a fictional plot like the life of Emma Hamilton, they would not be believed. This exhibition gives us a glimpse of the many and varied roles she played. This was a woman who, despite her achievements, we cannot help but see through the eyes of men and she was well aware that her very existence depended on stoking their desires. The National Maritime Museum has displayed, together in one room, a group of portraits by George Romney, and in each one she is playing a different role: Emma as a Bacchante, Emma as a Spinster, Emma as Absence. In the second room of the exhibition Emma Hamilton: Seduction and Celebrity, the teenage Emma Hart – she who would become Lady Hamilton – looks down at the visitor from every wall.
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