Colley Cibber

1 portrait by Sir Henry Cheere, 1st Bt

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Colley Cibber

attributed to Benjamin Rackstrow (or Rackstraw)
painted plaster bust, circa 1740
27 1/8 in. x 20 1/8 in. (690 mm x 510 mm) overall
Purchased, 1896
Primary Collection
NPG 1045

On display in Room 9 on Floor 3 at the National Portrait Gallery

Sitterback to top

  • Colley Cibber (1671-1757), Dramatist and actor. Sitter in 9 portraits.

Artistback to top

This portraitback to top

This striking painted plaster bust was once at Strawberry Hill in the collection of Cibber's friend, Horace Walpole. More detailed information on this portrait is available in a National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue, John Kerslake's Early Georgian Portraits (1977, out of print).

Linked publicationsback to top

Events of 1740back to top

Current affairs

The song Rule, Britannia! by Thomas Arne is performed for the first time at Cliveden, the country home of Frederick, Prince of Wales.
A now discredited account by antiquarian William Stukely asserts that Stonehenge was built by druids.

Art and science

Samuel Richardson publishes the first two volumes of Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, the best-selling novel of the period.
Artists Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough both arrive in London. Reynolds is apprenticed to the leading portrait-painter Thomas Hudson, while Gainsborough begins his artistic training with the French engraver and illustrator Hubert-Francois Gravelot.

International

Death of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI and the succession of his eldest daughter Maria Térèsa heralds the start of the War of the Austrian Succession. Britain, already fighting Spain (in the War of Jenkin's Ear), is drawn into the wider conflict as an ally of Austria until 1748.
Frederick II becomes King of Prussia.
Pope Benedict XIV succeeds Pope Clement XII as the 247th pope.


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