The British love affair with portraiture in miniature, pastels and oils from the time of Hilliard to Hoppner is renowned. But the walls of the Royal Academy and, indeed certain rooms in people’s houses, were also covered with framed portrait drawings - in pencil, chalk or watercolour.

Dr Kim Sloan, Curator of British Drawings and Watercolours at the British Museum, will give a brief introduction to this aspect of the Intimate Portraits exhibition, focusing on some of the highlights and exploring the ways in which artists examined their own character, informally recorded their friends and family or were commissioned to capture the faces and fashions of the time.

Mary Hamilton (detail) - Sir Thomas Lawrence, 1789 © British Museum, London. Purchased after an export licence deferral with assistance of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, The Art Fund, British Museum Friends and the Patrons of Old Master Drawings