| |
Artist Jon Jones and one of his paintings |
Covent Garden Ladies: Artist takes inspiration from ‘history of vice’
IT'S easy to forget but before Harry Potter and the Da Vinci Code, the bestsellers list was more of a broad church.
In 18th-century London the book on every bedside table was a guide to prostitutes called Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies – a sort of Yellow Pages of vice, describing the qualities, history, tastes and specialities of each lady, together with address and the going rate.
The scandalous book, penned by an until-recently unmasked pimp, was edited and revised by the historian Hallie Rubenhold in 2005 and is the inspiration for a new exhibition of paintings at the Freud Gallery called Covent Garden Ladies.
Jon Jones’s haunting images free the bawds, strumpets and prostitutes who plied their trade on the streets of West End from the fate of being a mere historical footnote, giving them a face and, more importantly, an identity. Mr Jones, who ploughed through reams of Old Bailey court transcripts, venereal hospital archives and old sexual slang before wetting his brush, said the project started out as a bit of a joke before turning into something more serious.
“It started out as a joke just to paint some lighthearted nudes,” he said. “But then I got into it and started becoming obsessed by the history. It’s not supposed to be moralising nor is it supposed to be titillating.”
Among the faces are Miss Smith of Duke’s Court in Bow Street, “a well-made lass, something under the middle size, with dark brown hair and a good complexion”.
Whatever your reaction to these paintings, one thing you won’t be able to do is get your hands on one. They were so popular, they were snapped up within 15 minutes of the opening.
• |
 |
|
| |
| |
