"This collection began with the idea of revising A Portsmouth Canvas: The Art of the City and the Sea 1770-1970 (2008), but by degrees this was abandoned in favour of a closer look at the changing relations between artists, patrons and public in eighteenth-century provincial England, beginning with the activities of George Beare (c. 1725-1749), whose rising talents were tragically cut short by his early death. As his two earliest patrons, Dean Alured Clarke, and John Wallop, 1st Earl of Portsmouth had strong Hampshire connections, this inevitably led to a closer look at the varying fortunes of artists in Georgian Hampshire. These essays move on to focus on Portsmouth finishing with a brief examination of its portrayl by painters in Tudor and Stuart times."--Introduction.