Friday, May 29, 2020

Painted Portraits of Stage Performers

attributed to Jean-Honoré Fragonard after Domenico Fetti
Portrait of actor Tristano Martinelli
ca. 1760
oil on canvas
Manchester Art Gallery

attributed to William Hamilton
Portrait Study of Mrs. Siddons
ca. 1784
oil on canvas
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

attributed to Richard Cosway
Mrs. Siddons reading in a Grotto
ca. 1810
oil on canvas
Scarborough Art Gallery, Yorkshire

Anonymous British Artist
John Philip Kemble as Vicentio in Measure for Measure
ca. 1794
oil on canvas
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

William Beechey
Portrait of John Philip Kemble
1798-99
oil on canvas
Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

anonymous copyist after Thomas Lawrence
John Philip Kemble as Rolla
in Pizarro by Richard Brinsley Sheridan

1800
oil on canvas
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

"My brave associates – partners of my toil, my feelings and my fame! – can Rolla's words add vigour to the virtuous energies which inspire your hearts? – No –YOU have judged as I have, the foulness of the crafty plea by which these bold invaders would delude you – Your generous spirit has compared as mine has, the motives, which, in a war like this, can animate their minds, and ours. – THEY by a strange frenzy driven, fight for power, for plunder, and our homes. – THEY follow an adventurer whom they fear – and obey a power which they hate – WE serve a monarch whom we love – a God whom we adore. – Wherever they move in anger, desolation tracks their progress! – Wherever they pause in amity, affliction mourns their friendship! – They boast, they come but to improve our state, enlarge our thoughts, and free us from the yoke of error! – Yes – THEY will give enlightened freedom to our minds, who are themselves the slaves of passion, avarice and pride – They offer us their protection – Yes, such protection as vultures give to lambs – covering and devouring them! – They call on us to barter all of good we have inherited and proved, for the desperate chance of something better which they promise. – Be our plain answer this: The throne WE honour is the PEOPLE'S CHOICE – the laws we reverence are our brave fathers' legacy – the faith we follow teaches us to live in bonds of charity with all mankind, and die with hope of bliss beyond the grave. Tell your invaders this, and tell them too, we seek no change; and, least of all, such change as they would bring us."

Pizarro, or, The Spaniards in Peru: A Tragedy in Five Acts (Act II, scene 2) by Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1799), adapted from Die Spanier in Peru by August von Kotzebue (1796)

Gilbert Stuart
Portrait of John Philip Kemble
ca. 1785
oil on canvas
National Portrait Gallery, London

François Bouchot
Portrait of opera singer Giulia Grisi
1840
oil on canvas
Royal Academy of Music, London

John Partridge
Portrait of opera singer Gaetano Crivelli
ca. 1825
oil on canvas
Royal Society of Musicians of Great Britain, London

attributed to Henry Fuseli
Harriet Mellon as Mistress Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor
ca. 1795
oil on canvas
Burton Gallery, University of Leeds

Thomas Gainsborough
Portrait of dancer Giovanna Baccelli
ca. 1782
oil on canvas
Tate Britain

William Nicholson
Miss Wish Wynne as Janet Cannot
in The Great Adventure by Arnold Bennett

1913
oil on canvas
Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery

Nina Hamnett
Portrait of dancer Rupert Doone
1922-23
oil on canvas
Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery, Yorkshire

Hugh Goldwin Rivière
Three Impressions of singer Jean Sterling Mackinlay
1912
oil on canvas
Royal Academy of Music, London

Philip Harris
Portrait of dancer Anthony Dowell
1995
oil on canvas
National Portrait Gallery, London