Painting the people who serve the people

Suddenly, servants are headline news.

Allegations about Prince Charles and an aide are made by another servant; a beans-spilling memoir is written by Princess Diana’s former butler. These days, indiscreet household staffers are everywhere.

Their stories appeal to a huge public appetite for backstairs gossip and for insights into the tradition-bound but oddly intimate relationship between masters and servants.

The same hunger is drawing crowds to “Below Stairs,” an exhibition of servants’ portraits at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

The pictures, spanning 400 years and ranging from Tudor jesters and 18th century “hen wives” to Victorian housemaids, provide a striking new angle on depictions of domestic life.

“Nobody’s ever really written or thought about the subject,” said co-curator Giles Waterfield, who says the show is the first of its kind in Britain.

“There have been traditional hierarchies in literature and art, but now people are more interested in what the whole community did, not just the privileged or the clever,” he added.

Traditionally, portrait painting has depicted the famous, wealthy or well-connected. But a surprising number of servants sneaked in too -- often in the background, sometimes through “loyalty portraits” commissioned by employers for long service.

A few of the people depicted in the show are famous, notably John Brown, Queen Victoria’s Scottish attendant and confidant. Some of the images, such as William Hogarth’s portrait of six of his staff, are warmly affectionate.

But many other subjects are anonymous figures, surrounded by the tools of their trade brought vividly to life.

Bridget Holmes -- lavatory attendant to the royal family -- is depicted as a dignified and rather fearsome figure, still wielding her mop at age 96, in a 1686 portrait by John Riley.

“This is the opposite of traditional grand portraiture,” Waterfield said. “The subjects are often shown unadorned; there was no reason to flatter them. These portraits are extremely direct. The prevailing atmosphere of the exhibition is that these are real human beings.”

The show also conveys employers’ sometimes ambiguous relationships with their staff. There are pictures of “pretty and alluring” maidservants, as well as excerpts from books, such as Samuel Richardson’s 18th century novel “Pamela,” the story of an innocent servant girl and a predatory master.

There are African and Indian slaves, taken to Britain -- often forcibly -- from around its empire. And there are depictions of slothful or wily servants, alongside imprecations against those who get ideas above their station.

As late as the 1930s, there were 1.3 million domestic servants in Britain, toiling in kitchens, waiting at table, caring for children, driving, gardening and cleaning.

As the era recedes, Waterfield said, people are more comfortable investigating the legacy of master-servant relationships. “Gosford Park” and “The Remains of the Day” are among films that study the emotional cost of a life in service.

“Many people whose grandmothers were in service might not have wanted to think about that 20 years ago,” Waterfield said. “Now we’re much more relaxed about it. We live in a more egalitarian age, and the idea of privilege through heredity is much more in question.”

Except, that is, for the regimented and privileged world of the royal family, greatest of the great households.

“A Royal Duty,” the recently published book by Princess Diana’s former butler, Paul Burrell, describes an insular and slightly fevered palace world, in which it is considered presumptuous for footmen to walk down the middle of a carpet and the staff holds “giddy drinking parties” fueled by pilfered gin.

Prince Charles, Burrell tells us, “had meticulous needs,” which his valet had to meet: “A silver key, bearing his feathers, was attached to the end of a toothpaste tube like a sardine-tin key and turned to squeeze enough to fit on the brush. His cotton pajamas had to be ironed every morning.”

The National Portrait Gallery exhibition includes a depiction of the ideal employee, William Cave’s 1809 painting “The Trusty Servant.” He has stag’s feet for swiftness, a donkey’s head for patience and a padlocked jaw to guarantee discretion. The figure is dressed in the uniform of the royal household.

“Below Stairs” runs at the National Portrait Gallery in London until Jan. 11 and at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, Feb. 12 through May 31.