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Frederick, Prince of Wales

Marcel Lauron was a French painter who had settled in The Hague in Holland in the mid-seventeenth century. He moved to England sometime before 1674, accompanied by his son, Marcellus Lauron (1653-1702). By 1680 Marcellus had married an Englishwoman and se

A Dinner Party ©

During the early eighteenth century – the period referred to as the ‘Age of Enlightenment’ – the informal gathering replaced the court as the epicentre of European culture. The elites of Paris and London met in salons, coffee-houses, clubs or public parks where their conversations expressed a new political, economic and philosophical liberty.

Princes could join in so long as they respected ‘club rules’. Frederick the Great of Prussia (1712–86) befriended Voltaire; his cousin, Frederick, Prince of Wales (1707–51), visited Alexander Pope at his Twickenham villa, joined the Freemasons and became an active supporter of the parliamentary opposition to his father’s first minister, Sir Robert Walpole.

Conversation pieces show the Prince, who was the eldest son of George II, as an affectionate brother (no. 15), a clubbable friend (nos. 16 and 17) and a popular man about town (no. 18). The form perhaps also expressed Britain’s new ‘contractual’ relationship between monarch and subject. 

Marcellus Laroon the Younger (1679-1772)

A Dinner Party

Marcellus Laroon the Younger (1679-1772)

A Musical Tea Party

William Hogarth (1697-1764)

The Popple and Ashley Families

William Hogarth (1697-1764)

The Family of George II

Attributed to British School, 18th century

St James's Park and the Mall