Emma Hamilton: Seduction and Celebrity

Stunning exhibition at the National Maritime Museum looking at the life of Emma Hamilton.

The exhibition was beautifully laid out and took you through Emma’s life like walking through a novel. I’d obviously known about her later life with Nelson and a bit about her time in Naples but I hadn’t realised her humble beginnings, she early life and a servant and possibly a prostitute in London, her various ‘protectors’ and that she had been a muse to the artist Romney.

Even when we got the Naples section (and I have to mention the lovely panorama of the city along the walkway to the section with sea noises and a projection of waves on the floor) I hadn’t realised that she had basically been given to Lord Hamilton by his nephew. She turned a horrid situation around, eventually marrying him and gaining a classical education. I’d known nothing about her performances to his friends and visitors to Naples of dances she called “The Attitudes” and the influence that had. I was entranced by the video recreation of them.

Then we got onto her role in politics in Naples and the meeting with Nelson but I need to leave something to find out for yourselves when you go, and you have to go! This follows through to her almost celebrity life with Nelson and a good section on what happened to him after he died.

As well as telling the story well there was some fantastic objects. I loved the room of portraits of her by Romney, having so many really emphasised how she influenced him and it was lovely to see one of his day books there as well. There was an amazing letter by her to one of her protectors begging him to take her under his wing after she was rejected by his friend when she became pregnant and his reply basically drawing up a contract to become lovers. It was lovely to have recording of these letters so you could really feel the emotion in them. Add to this some of Hamilton’s Greek vases, copies of this books and a section of the decoration from the dress she wore to the ball celebrating Nelson’s victory at the Battle of the Nile.

Closes on 17 April  2017.

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