Tea Party at Lord Harrington's House, St. James's

Charles Philips, 1708–1747

1730

Oil on canvas

Yale Center for British Art

A group of men and women in 18th-century attire are gathered in a richly decorated room, some seated and conversing, others standing. Two dogs are visible on the patterned rug. In the early 1730s, small pictures with multiple figures, known as conversation pieces, came into vogue. Popular first among royalty and aristocratic families, the taste soon spread to the middling classes and remained popular into the nineteenth century. Charles Philips helped pioneer the conversation piece, and this example is his most ambitious. Here a group of courtiers take tea, most of them Whigs in opposition to George II’s government. The setting is the Earl of Harrington’s London house near St. James’s Palace. Lord Harrington is, however, absent since he was on a diplomatic mission to Paris. Instead, he is represented vicar