The Royal Sign and Visual Literacy in Eighteenth-Century London

Abstract

This article argues that the commercialization of monarchical culture is more complex than existing scholarship suggests. It explores the aesthetic dimensions of regal culture produced outside of the traditionally defined sphere of art and politics by focusing on the variety of royal images and symbols depicted on hanging signs in eighteenth-century London. Despite the overwhelming presence of kings and queens on signboards, few study these as a form of regal visual culture or seriously question the ways in which these everyday objects affected representations of royalty beyond asserting an unproblematic process of declension. Indeed, even in the Restoration and early eighteenth century, monarchical signs were the subject of criticism and debate. This article explains why this became the case, arguing that signs were criticized not because they were trivial commercial objects that cheapened royal charisma, but because they were overloaded with political meaning. They emblematized the failures of representation in the age of print and party politics by depicting the monarchythe traditional center of representative stability-in ways that troubled interpretation and defied attempts to control the royal image. Nevertheless, regal images and objects circulating in urban spaces comprised a meaningful political-visual language that challenges largely accepted arguments about the aesthetic inadequacy and cultural unimportance of early eighteenth-century monarchy. Signs were part of an urban, graphic public sphere, used as objects of political debate, historical commemoration, and civic instruction.Yet indulge me, Gentlemen, but a few Words more, to excite you to stand up in the Defense of these precious Signs; the Ornament of our Houses, and the Glory of our Capital. 1 B y the early eighteenth century, the commercialization of visual and material culture, along with the expansion of print, allowed English subjects unprecedented opportunities to see and possess images of rulers. 2 And yet, how cultures of consumerism affected royalism, and how commodified representationsStephanie Koscak is assistant professor of history at Wake Forest University. She is especially grateful to Dror Wahrman, Sarah Knott, Robert Schneider, and Hall Bjornstad for their feedback on early drafts of this article, and she would like to thank the editors and anonymous reviewers of Journal of British Studies for their suggestions and comments.