Fashion in painting
Symbols, status and changes in dress
Members go free
This is an online event, exclusive to Members, hosted on Zoom.
Members, please book your free ticket to access this event. You will receive an E-ticket with instructions on how to access your online events, films and resources via your National Gallery account. Only one ticket can be booked per account.
A recording of this event will be made available to all ticket holders in the days following the event.
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Fashion and art go hand in hand.
In portraits, people showcase who they are: their power, identity or wealth. Look across art history and you can spot the changing trends. Join art historian Jacqui Ansell as she introduces her new book, ‘Fashion’, at this after-hours Members event.
We will delve into the silks and suits of our most fashionably dressed sitters, trace how fashions changed over the centuries and how they were used to shape identity and signal power.
'Fashion' is part of a new series celebrating the National Gallery Collection, available to pre-order for mid-April.
Dive deeper with ‘Decoding Dress: Unlocking the secrets of fashion in painting’. This online course runs from Thursday, 30 April to 4 June 2026, available to everyone.
Speaker
Jacqui Ansell is an experienced lecturer who has devised talks and tours based around the National Gallery’s collection for many years. She lectures on art and cultural history for the Wallace Collection, National Portrait Gallery and the Arts Society and was Senior Lecturer at Christie’s Education, writing, presenting and tutoring online courses.
Watch again
A recording of this event will be made available to all ticket holders in the days following the event.
This recording will be available for two weeks.
Closed captions
Automatic closed captioning is available for this event.