Early Georgian Portraits Catalogue

All known portraits represent the sitter late in life and usually in character. By 1764 Macklin had lost his teeth, and by about 1788, his memory. The scene by Zoffany showing the sitter as Shylock, his most famous role, is possibly the best likeness. Traditionally connected with the benefit performance of May 1775 given before Lord Mansfield, [1] shown extreme left, it was presented to the Tate Gallery, 1951, from the Lansdowne collection. A single figure as Shylock attributed to Zoffany, formerly in the collection of W. Somerset Maugham, now belongs to the National Theatre collection. [2] A portrait by Samuel de Wilde, engraved by R. Cromek for Bell's British Theatre, 1795 (F. O'Donoghue and Sir Henry M. Hake, Catalogue of Engraved British Portraits ... in the British Museum, 1908-25, 3), depicts Macklin as McSycophant in his own play Man of the World, first produced in 1781. Versions are in the Garrick Club and the National Gallery of Ireland. Other roles recorded by de Wilde include 'Sir Gilbert Wrangle' in Cibber's The Refusal now known only through the engraving by Thornthwaite of 1792 (F. O'Donoghue and Sir Henry M. Hake, Catalogue of Engraved British Portraits ... in the British Museum, 1908-25, 4). The portrait by Opie (NPG 1319) is of about this period. A medallion(?) by John Charles Lochée, owned by Macklin, and probably produced for Wedgwood, was engraved by J. Corner for the European Magazine, 1787. Drawings by James Roberts, engraved by Cooke, 1779 (F. O'Donoghue and Sir Henry M. Hake, Catalogue of Engraved British Portraits ... in the British Museum, 1908-25, 18), and by Johann Heinrich Ramberg, engraved by T. Cook, 1785 (F. O'Donoghue and Sir Henry M. Hake, Catalogue of Engraved British Portraits ... in the British Museum, 1908-25, 17) are in the British Museum, [3] as are a number of small plates published by J. Bell and others, listed in O'Donoghue and the Harvard Theatre Collection catalogue. [4] The last important portrait is probably the oil by Sir W. Beechey, now known by W. Ridley's small plate in the Monthly Mirror of 1796.

1) Cp the scene by J. Boyne from The Merchant of Venice, engraving by W. Nutter, 1790 (F. O'Donoghue and Sir Henry M. Hake, Catalogue of Engraved British Portraits ... in the British Museum, 1908-25, 2).
2) R. Mander and J. Mitchenson, The Artist and the Theatre [catalogue of the Somerset Maugham collection], 1955, p 55, reproduced p 54.
3) L. Binyon, Catalogue of drawings by British artists ... in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, 1898-1907, III, pp 92, 235.
4) Compiled by L. A. Hall, 1930-34.


This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: John Kerslake, Early Georgian Portraits, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1977, and is as published then. For the most up-to-date details on individual Collection works, we recommend reading the information provided in the Search the Collection results on this website in parallel with this text.