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| Thomas Gainsborough Portrait of David Garrick ca. 1770 oil on canvas National Portrait Gallery, London |
"The famous Garrick said to the Chevalier de Chastelux, "However sensitive nature may have made you, if you perform with reference only to yourself, or to the most perfect subsistent nature known to you, you can only be mediocre."
"Mediocre! And why is that?"
"Because for you, for me, and for the spectator there is an ideally possible man who, in a given circumstance, would respond differently from yourself. Such is the imaginary being you should take as your model. The more vivid your conception of him, the more extraordinary, marvelous, and sublime, the grander you will be."
"You never play yourself, then?"
"I take particular care not to. And this goes not only for myself, but for the chevalier as well as everyone in my circle. When I tear by guts apart, when I scream like an animal; these are not my own guts, nor my own cries, but rather the guts and cries of another I've imagined and who doesn't exist."
– Denis Diderot, from The Salon of 1767, translated by John Goodman (Yale University Press, 1995)
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| Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg David Garrick as Don John 1774 oil on panel Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| William Duesbury & Co., Derby Portrait bust of Jean-Jacques Rousseau ca. 1780 soft-paste porcelain Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| George Engleheart Miniature portrait of Charlotte, Princess-Royal, later Queen of Württemburg 1795 watercolor on ivory Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Richard Cosway Self-portrait ca. 1790 pencil and wash National Portrait Gallery, London |
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| Anonymous print-maker after Rosalba Carriera Self-portrait 18th century etching, engraving British Museum |
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| Jean-Baptist Greuze Self-portrait 18th century drawing Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Henri Simon Thomassin Imaginary portrait of Caravaggio early 18th century engraving National Gallery of Art (U.S.) |
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| Godfrey Kneller Portrait of William Stukeley 1721 drawing National Portrait Gallery, London |
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| Gaspard Duchange Portrait of Charles de La Fosse 1707 engraving British Museum |
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| John Bacon Portrait bust of an unknown man late 18th century terracotta Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Anonymous painter Portrait of George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton ca. 1756 oil on canvas National Portrait Gallery, London |
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| Anonymous painter Portrait of Constantine John Phipps, 2nd Baron Mulgrave ca. 1775 oil on canvas National Portrait Gallery, London |
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| attributed to George Willison Portrait of Robert Adam, with folio ca. 1770-75 oil on canvas National Portrait Gallery, London |