John Clare
(1793-1864), PoetRegency Portraits Catalogue Entry
Sitter associated with 4 portraits
Promoted as 'the Northamptonshire Peasant Poet', Clare spent much of his life as a poor agricultural labourer before mental illness condemned him to an asylum in 1837. His intensely detailed poetry reflects his love of his native countryside. It also movingly describes the hardship suffered by the rural poor living in a landscape being destroyed by enclosure. Clare enjoyed a brief London vogue with his Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery (1820) and The Village Minstrel (1821). In 1827, he published The Shepherd's Calendar a more political verse in which man shapes the landscape and is defined by it.
Unknown man, formerly known as John Clare
by William Henry Hunt
watercolour, 1820s
NPG 3843
by W.W. Law
albumen print, 1862
NPG P1101
by Edward Scriven, after William Hilton
stipple engraving, published 1821
NPG D5221
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