The Muff Affair: Fashioning Celebrity in the Portraits of Late-eighteenth-century British Actresses

Abstract

In this article, I argue that images of muffs in several portraits of actresses from the 1780s and 1790s can be read as ambiguous cultural signs that are analogous to the ambivalent position of actresses as female celebrities in the late eighteenth century. Muffs in portraits of actresses draw attention to the complex boundary between fame and notoriety for eighteenth-century women: in certain images muffs function as signs of aristocracy and glamour, in others of crass accumulation and overt sexuality. At the same time that these portraits were being painted a number of satiric prints appeared featuring female bodies engulfed by enormous muffs. Muffs function in these caricatures as ambiguous signs of gender and sexuality, which may have been directly related to anxieties about actresses acting as consumers, fashion plates, and urban professionals. The dual nature of the muff represents the complexities of fashioning celebrity for eighteenth-century female performers.

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