Life Imitating Art
But, as the pose was being revived in portraits, by artists, it moved from the art world into the real world. Life was beginning to imitate art.
The “hand-in-waistcoat” stance, according to Arline Meyer, became “a common stance for men of breeding,” and a way to indicate one’s status in English society. Even a widely-read 1738 book on etiquette mentioned this bizarre pose.