An English Family at Tea c. 1720

Curator: Joseph van Aken’s “An English Family at Tea” captures a moment of domesticity, rendered in oil on canvas. I’m immediately struck by the stiff formality, aren’t you? Editor: Absolutely. There's a sense of performance here. Note the carefully arranged tea service, almost like a still life within the portrait. Tea itself, newly fashionable, signaled wealth and refinement. Curator: And the classical statue looming in the background! Such a blatant display of cultivated taste, though I do find it slightly humorous how it seems to be judging the family. Editor: It’s aspirational, isn't it? The statue, like the tea, symbolizes the family's desire to align themselves with timeless ideals, even as they participate in a very specific, contemporary ritual. Curator: You see, it makes me wonder what they’re really thinking behind those powdered wigs and polite smiles. Editor: Perhaps they are wondering the same about us. It makes me question the difference between what is posed and what is intimate.