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Robert Dighton

1 of 4 portraits of Robert Dighton

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Robert Dighton

by Robert Dighton
pen and sepia wash, circa 1787
5 3/4 in. x 4 1/2 in. (146 mm x 114 mm)
Purchased, 1936
Primary Collection
NPG 2815

Sitterback to top

  • Robert Dighton (1751-1814), Portrait painter, caricaturist and actor. Sitter in 4 portraits, Artist or producer associated with 320 portraits.

Artistback to top

  • Robert Dighton (1751-1814), Portrait painter, caricaturist and actor. Artist or producer associated with 320 portraits, Sitter in 4 portraits.

This portraitback to top

This image was etched and published by Carington Bowles on 9 November 1787. In the etching the portfolio is lettered 'A BOOK OF HEADS BY ROBT. DIGHTON, Portrait Painter and Drawing Master'. Dighton's Book of Heads was published by Carington Bowles in 1795; the etching was used as the frontispiece. Dighton is shown holding a portfolio of drawings and a porte crayon (an instrument used for holding a piece of chalk or crayon).

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Events of 1787back to top

Current affairs

Social reformers Granville Sharp and Thomas Clarkson found the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade in London with support from John Wesley, Josiah Wedgwood and others.
George III shows first signs of mental instability in November.

Art and science

Painter Robert Barker takes out a patent on the Panorama..
Astronomer William Herschel discovers the two moons of Uranus, Titania and Oberon.
The original Lord's Cricket Ground holds its first cricket match.

International

Captain William Bligh sets sail for Tahiti on The Bounty.
First performance of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Don Giovanni at the National Theatre, Prague.
A British ship lands a party of freed slaves as the first modern settlers in Sierra Leone.
Captain Arthur Phillip leaves Portsmouth with eleven ships full of convicts to establish a penal colony in Australia.
Bahamas become a British colony.

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