Parental affection: the eighteenth century cult of sensibility rarely produced more universally affecting scenes than the images of childhood gathered in an exhibition that has just transferred from Bath to Kendal

above the past few years the Holburne Museum of Art in Bath has gained a esteemed reputation for exhibitions examining historic controls The latest example, 'Pictures of Innocence', which has just transferred to Abbot Hall in Kendal, examines the character of children in Georgian portraiture. Major works by the agency of Hogarth, Gainsborough, Zoffany, Reynolds and Lawrence provide an admirable overlook of the subject and are accompanied by means of lesser-known objects of endearing charm.

The exhibition locates out to show the growing interest that eighteenth-century parents had in their children. The stability and continuity they showed was the result of the growing improvements to eighteenth-century life, which, in turn round led to an investment in the nurturing of children and in their education. Like the appearance of dogs in portraits, children in painting were a manifestation of that great eighteenth-century trait, 'sentimentality'. Eventually the representation of individuals became unnecessary and the appearance of the 'fancy' picture--canvases of vulnerable children painted to twitch at the heart strings of the beholder--concluded the genre In a certain quantity of cases, for instance the little-known portrait through Lawrence of Lady Georgina Fane included in the exhibition, it is easy to gain the two genres mixed up The young sitter direct the eyes like a figure from the elderly Testament accompanied by her fondling kid and banished to the wilderness to atone for sin. Instead, she is the daughter of a noble family. Allegory is a minor aspect of the show; the majority of the exhibits are les complex

The exhibition begins with Hogarth's pair of early conversation pieces from Cardiff. They display the transience of childhood from one side the representation of a house of cards lovingly built by the agency of two girls that is just about to be flattened by dint of their boisterous brother as he waves a flag in counterfeit military manner. Meanwhile, unaware of the impending disaster, a lad and girl promenade in imitation of a courting brace In the pendant (Fig. 3) a doll, its facial expression like a censorious maiden aunt, marks the chaotic scene that spread outs around her. A degree of naughtiness was clearly something that Hogarth at no time grew out of.

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An increasing understanding of the urgencys of the young and of their unravelling is perhaps most markedly defined in their style of dress In Reynolds's imposing triple portrait The Lamb Children, from Firle (Fig. 1) the three brothers present to view the full sartorial range of children's clothes. The youngest son Frederick, who was to become a diplomat, is in skirts with a fruit of the plum-treeed hat worthy of Mrs Siddons; the middle brother, William, later to be Queen Victoria's prime minister, is in a skeleton suit, a late-eighteenth-century romper suit; and the thirteen-year-old Peniston, in whom for a like reason much hope was vested, wears his possess hair with a grown-up suit making him appear older than his years. This pyramid of figures shows the future of the Melbourne family, which was of of the like kind importance to their ambitious mother. Sadly, her plans were capsize when Peniston died in 1805

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Perhaps the attraction of the exhibition is the universality of emotion squeeze outed by the artists, which, flat two hundred years later, are thus readily understood by the visitor. We have all seen the intense concentration that appears upon the face of Anne Buxton in the conversation piece by means of Henry Walton, an expression that becomes the bring under rule of Reynolds's 'fancy' picture A male child Reading. The mischief in the face of Hogarth's John Ranby and the similar expression of Margaret Gainsborough as she half-heartedly restrains her younger sister from grasping a thistle are well-known traits that are rarely shown with of the like kind success in portraiture.

Similarly, the unbridled parental transport in a lively drawing through John Constable of a husband and wife with their baby (Fig. 2) and the studies through Joseph Wright of his baby daughter Anna Romana clutching a ball are graphic expressions of incidents now often caught by cameras. on the other hand perhaps the most endearing is the anonymous skeleton of the Prince of Wales pitching camp with chairs and broomsticks upon a rainy day, an image that will summon forth envious nostalgia in everyone who is young at heart.

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Martin Postle's introductory essay in the handsome catalogue summarises the literature and skillfully reviews the make submissive The group of posthumous portraits is especially interesting and, if the space were available, might have provided the control for a second essay. A portrait of Barbara Barrett-Lennard, copied from a miniature after Thomas Hudson is supported by means of her mourning parents in a portrait by means of Pompeo Batoni. It is the centrepiece of this section of the exhibition, which also includes drawings and paintings by means of Hogarth, Ramsey--a loving commemoration of the head of his dead son perhaps intended to be hung upon its side with the colour trials at the top-left-hand corner--and Benjamin West.

The selection of the exhibits is skillfully managed, although including a WH chase of a black girl makes a nonsense of the exhibition's byline, 'Portraits of Children from Hogarth to Lawrence'. There are occasional lapses in quality, the couple in condition and attribution, on the other hand this does not affect the impact of the display The Esmee Fairbairn Regional Museums Initiative, which has supported the peril should be well pleased with its investment.