Elizabeth Montagu was a British social reformer, patron of the arts, salonnière, literary critic and writer, who helped to organize and lead the Blue Stockings Society. Her parents were both from wealthy families with strong ties to the British peerage and learned life. She was sister to Sarah Scott, author of A Description of Millenium [sic] Hall and the Country Adjacent. She married Edward Montagu, a man with extensive landholdings, to become one of the richer women of her era. She devoted this fortune to fostering English and Scottish literature and to the relief of the poor.
Elizabeth Montagu, mezzotint engraving, by John Raphael Smith after a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, published 10 April 1776, 20 x 14 inches. In 1776 the Reynolds original was in possession of her cousin, the Lord Primate of Ireland, Richard Robinson, 1st Baron Rokeby. Now recorded as part of National Trust collection, item NT 592596, mezzotint, Treasurer's House, York, but not on show
Mrs Montagu's father, Robinson, is in the centre of this group portrait of Virtuosis by Gawen Hamilton.
Elizabeth Montagu, as Anne Boleyn, black and white reproduction of a miniature by Christian Friedrich Zincke, in a friendship box, c. 1740
Elizabeth Montagu by Allan Ramsay (1713–1784) in 1762.
A salon is a gathering of people held by a host. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to please or to educate". Salons in the tradition of the French literary and philosophical movements of the 17th and 18th centuries are still being carried on today.
Réunion de dames, Abraham Bosse, 17th century
"Abbé Delille reciting his poem, La Conversation in the salon of Madame Geoffrin" from Jacques Delille, "La Conversation" (Paris, 1812)
Portrait of Mme Geoffrin, salonnière, by Marianne Loir (National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC)
Italian in exile, Princess Belgiojoso 1832, salonnière in Paris where political and other émigré Italians, including composer Vincenzo Bellini, gathered in the 1830s. Portrait by Francesco Hayez
