Lord Byron in Albanian Dress

Thomas Phillips painted the original in eighteen thirteen, and this version is a replica he made for the publisher John Murray two decades later; the first version now hangs in the British Embassy in Athens. Phillips was a fashionable portraitist and he knew how to stage a celebrity. Look at the way the light falls on the embroidery and the moustache Byron had grown for the occasion, and at the theatrical contrast between the exotic dress and the very English, very direct gaze. Byron himself thought the costume was magnificent and wore it to a masquerade.

The gallery received the painting in eighteen sixty two, only a few years after its foundation. Byron died in Greece in eighteen twenty four fighting for Greek independence, and this portrait became the emblem of the poet as adventurer, a self image that he cultivated with great skill. Stand here and you are looking at one of the first modern celebrity portraits, a pose that rock stars have been copying ever since.

Did You Know? The costume was real: Byron bought several complete Albanian outfits in eighteen nine and described them as the most magnificent in the world.