Hand-in-waistcoat

The hand-in-waistcoat (also referred to as hand-inside-vest, hand-in-jacket, hand-held-in, or hidden hand) is a gesture commonly found in portraiture during the 18th and 19th centuries.

[2] The pose traces back to classical times – Aeschines, founder of a rhetoric school, suggested that speaking with an arm outside one's chiton was bad manners.

[1] An early 18th-century guide on "genteel behavior" noted the pose denoted "manly boldness tempered with modesty.

"[3][4] Art historian Arline Meyer has argued that – in addition to mirroring actual social behaviour or borrowing from classical statuary – the pose became a visualization of English national character in the post-Restoration period; in the context of increasing Anglo-French rivalry, the pose promoted "a natural, modest, and reticent image that was sanctioned by classical precedent" in contrast to "the gestural exuberance of the French rhetorical style with its Catholic and absolutist associations".

[5] With the invention of photography, the pose continued but may have had an additional purpose in preventing blurring by maintaining the sitter's hand in a single place.