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Fashioning the Viceroy: Portraits of Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton (1831-91)

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 10:19 authored by Tracy Anderson
This article considers the visual representation of Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton, Viceroy and Governor-General of India from 1876 to 1880. In his photographic and painted portraits, as well as in his treatment by satirists, Lytton’s problematic gendered and imperial identities are seen to intersect awkwardly, reflecting and informing anxieties about late nineteenth-century forms of masculinity and colonialism. His perceived weaknesses were therefore visualized in terms of emasculation and feminization, in a manner which worked simultaneously to explain and to obfuscate his policy decisions as Viceroy. As a consequence, Lytton’s image became a vehicle through which broader failings of imperial policy could be projected. After his return from India, portraiture also became a vehicle through which Lytton could be inserted into the late Victorian canon of masculine examplars.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Journal

Visual Culture in Britain

ISSN

1471-4787

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Issue

3

Volume

12

Page range

293-311

Department affiliated with

  • Art History Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Editors

S Monks

Legacy Posted Date

2012-06-25

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