Pamela (paintings)

Pamela is a series of twelve paintings by the English artist Joseph Highmore, produced between 1741 and 1743 as the basis for a set of prints.

The book was already a popular one for painters - the younger artist Francis Hayman had produced designs for Gravelot's engravings for the 1742 edition[1] as well as a pair of scenes from the novel for Vauxhall Gardens, also around 1742[2] (one is lost and the other is now in the National Trust's collections at Sizergh Castle[3]).

The first advertisement also stated he was taking subscriptions for a set of twelve engravings after the novel[4] — Highmore had Louis Truchy and Antoine Benoist produce them.

Art historians see the Pamela series as placing Highmore alongside Hogarth and Hayman as "one of the initiators of a British school of narrative painting".

The NGV's four works from the Pamela series were first exhibited on 10 May 1921, with one local newspaper remarking that they "tell their story dramatically and, though the drawing is occasionally weak, the figures have a certain feeling of life and vitality that renders them interesting from the illustrative point of view".