David Garrick (1717-1779) with a Bust of Shakespeare (a copy of the destroyed painting of 1766/69)
after Thomas Gainsborough RA (Sudbury 1727 - London 1788)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1800 - 1899
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1137 x 756 mm (44 3/4 x 29 3/4 in)
Order this imageCollection
Charlecote Park, Warwickshire
NT 533870
Caption
This is a copy of the portrait destroyed by fire at the Museum in Stratford-upon-Avon. This original was the first work that Garrick commissioned from Gainsborough. The pose is a conscious tribute to Scheemakers’s celebrated statue on the poet’s monument in Westminster Abbey. It was exhibited at the Society of Artists in 1766, and after the exhibition, Garrick allowed Gainsborough to take the picture back and rework it, so it could be sold to the Corporation of Stratford for the Shakespeare Jubilee in 1769. This version is a copy of the reworked picture.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, David Garrick (1717-1779) with a Bust of Shakespeare, after Thomas Gainsborough RA (Sudbury 1727 - London 1788). A full-length portrait of the actor, David Garrick, he is wearing black coat, a long red and gold waistcoat and black shoes. He is holding a black hat in his right hand and there is a long sword at his left hip. He is in a landscape setting with a large tree directly behind him and the Palladian bridge at Prior Park, Bath, can be seen behind him. Garrick is looking off to his left and is leaning against a plinth topped with a bust of William Shakespeare. His right arm is wrapped around the bust. Framed in an elaborately carved giltwood frame. The original of the painting by Gainsborough was destroyed in the fire at the Museum, Stratford-upon-Avon, in 1947.
Makers and roles
after Thomas Gainsborough RA (Sudbury 1727 - London 1788), artist