Sarah Siddons (née Kemble)
- Overview
- Extended Catalogue Entry
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Sarah Siddons (née Kemble)
by John Downman
chalk, 1787
8 in. x 6 3/4 in. (203 mm x 171 mm) oval
Given by Mrs D.E. Knollys, 1934
Primary Collection
NPG 2651
Sitterback to top
- Sarah Siddons (née Kemble) (1755-1831), Actress. Sitter associated with 40 portraits, Artist or producer associated with 1 portrait.
This portraitback to top
John Downman studied under Benjamin West and exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1770 and 1802. This depiction of Sarah Siddons is one of twenty portraits of 'beauties' commissioned by the 3rd Duke of Richmond. The subject, who was painted in theatrical guises by all of the leading artists of her day including Gainsborough and Reynolds, is pictured here in ordinary, fashionable dress.
Linked publicationsback to top
- Edited by Rab MacGibbon and Tanya Bentley, Icons and Identities, 2021, p. 31
- Ingamells, John, National Portrait Gallery: Mid-Georgian Portraits 1760-1790, 2004, p. 431
- Rogers, Malcolm, Master Drawings from the National Portrait Gallery, 1993 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 5 August to 23 October 1994), p. 67
- Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 564
Linked displays and exhibitionsback to top
- Late Eighteenth Century Prints and Drawings (17 April 2004 - 5 September 2004)
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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