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18th Century PicturesPage 1

Prints and paintings are mentioned in inventories of middling households in the eighteenth century but there is little clear evidence for exactly what the subjects were or how the pictures were arranged. Portraits, referred to as 'family pictures', appeared at this level of society from the 1730s. Pictures were probably hung flat against the wall with unobtrusive fixings.

Group portrait of the Shudi family, by Carl Marcus Tuscher, c.1740; oil on canvas.
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Group portrait of the Shudi family, by Carl Marcus Tuscher, c.1740; oil on canvas.

© National Portrait Gallery, London