Sedate tea parties, boisterous parlour games and homely musical recitals are among the subjects examined in the genre known as the ‘conversation piece’, a type of group portraiture in which respectable sitters are depicted relaxing in informal social situations. This exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery introduces the visitor to the origins of the conversation piece in seventeenth-century Dutch art, and traces its subsequent development during the next two centuries by several painters who worked for British patrons, principally Johann Zoffany, George Stubbs and Edwin Landseer.

The crucial task for these artists was to strike a balance between ease and authority. To depict one’s sitters in too laid-back a way was sure to undermine their dignity, yet to flaunt their social status or public achievements was to destroy the impression of spontaneity which constituted the unique appeal of the conversation piece. The fascination of the exhibition lies in seeing how different artists manage this dilemma. Zoffany, to take a fertile case, retains the standard trappings of elite portraiture (exquisite costumes, plush furnishings, classical architecture), but also introduces elements which playfully undermine the boundary between the fictive and the real, thus turning his paintings into delightful visual games. His portrait of Queen Charlotte with her Two Eldest Sons (c.1765) mischievously contrasts the three ‘living’ figures mentioned in the title with body parts glimpsed in mirrors and inset paintings, and with two carved Chinese mannequins – which, through a trick of perspective, are made to seem as large as their human counterparts.

Given the small size of the exhibition (about 35 paintings), its division into six historical periods feels forced. Perhaps a thematic arrangement would have been more stimulating here: seeing the works by Stubbs and Landseer hung with the earlier depictions of horses by the Dutch animal painter Melchior de Hondecoeter might, for example, have helped to clarify the particular range of interests – anatomical, social, aesthetic – that each brought to the equestrian body.

Until Feb 14

THOMAS BALFE