For a discussion of Dickens's objection to conventionality in art and to the use of stereotyped models by contemporary painters, an objection frequently expressed in his novels, see L. Ormond, 'Dickens and Painting: Contemporary Art', The Dickensian, Vol. 80 (1984), pp. 12–16. He had already mocked this practice in Pictures from Italy (1846), when describing models waiting to be hired on the Spanish Steps in Rome:
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