Practitioners of the oldest profession did not regularly find themselves on canvas but Linda Smith, our lecturer on the topic of ‘Great Tarts in Art’, took us on a pictorial romp through the late seventeenth century and to more recent times. Charles II imported the French custom of introducing his mistresses into Society. Barbara Villiers might have been rude, vulgar and promiscuous but she was made Duchess of Cleveland for her efforts. A contemporary favourite became Duchess of Portsmouth but it was Nell Gwynn who graduated from the London stage to become the most popular model of British values of the time. Paintings of Restoration beauties, often showing them as shepherdesses, reveal a fashion for languishing eyes and the hint of a double chin. Into the next century we find Stubbs painting a respectable family group, prior to the wife wandering from the stable and producing a son who later became the prime minister Lord Melbourne. Gainsborough portrayed the durable mistress of the ambassador to France, as well as a courtesan who divided her loyalties between the Prince of Wales and some of the French revolutionary hierarchy. At the top of the tree the fees were high. Kitty Fisher, painted by Nathaniel Hone and of nursery rhyme fame, charged a nightly rate of 100 guineas; a syndicate had a sort of annual time share for 2000 guineas. Careers tended to be relatively short but Elizabeth Armistead ruled the roost for ten years and was painted by Joshua Reynolds after marrying into the aristocracy. A contemporary used blackmail when past her prime : the Duke of Wellington refused to pay up. There was a darker side. Hogarth saw related disease as a metaphor for the wider corruption in eighteenth century society; the urban world captured by Manet in France suggested uncertainty and a lack of depth in relationships; Lautrec lived amongst poor prostitutes and showed sympathy for their life in the shadows; Grosz’ 1920’s ‘fat cat’ patrons symbolised the rot in European civilisation. Even Lady Hamilton died in poverty.