A panoply of plastic poses: on Emma Hamilton

No life perhaps better exemplifies the potential for an attractive woman in the 18th century, but also the perils sure to stalk her, than that of Emma Hamilton (1765-1815). In her successive incarnations as Amy Lyon, Emma Hart, Lady Hamilton and, finally, mother to Admiral Nelsons daughter Horatia, she embodied social mobility of the most rapid upward sort, but the downward curve that followed was no less steep and spectacular.
The daughter of a Cheshire blacksmith, Amy or Emy soon found herself