Regency Portraits Catalogue
Robert Southey (1774-1843), Poet Laureate
- Gallery portraits
- All known portraits
- Biography and References
Southey was very sensitive about his many portraits particularly regarding his prominent beaky nose. He catalogues 'an array of villainous visages' in the Epistle to Allan Cunningham dated Keswick August 1828 (The Poetical Work of Robert Southey collected by himself, 1838, II, pp 303-18) and gives the key to the Epistle in a letter to Caroline Bowles, 1 January 1829 (Correspondence of Robert Southey with Caroline Bowles, ed. Edward Dowden, 1881, p 151).
1776
Miniature referred to in his poem 'On My Own Miniature Picture' written at Bristol in 1796 (The Poetical Work of Robert Southey collected by himself, 1838, II, p 231). He gave it to Caroline on their marriage in 1839.
1795
Oil by Peter Vandyke (NPG 193).
1796-1800
Miniature by James Sharples in City of Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, reproduced New Letters of Robert Southey, ed. Kenneth Curry, 1965, I, frontispiece. The Bristol Catalogue (no.31) says it was probably painted in Bath c.1792 but the shortness of the hair places it certainly well after the Peter Vandyke portrait of 1795.
1796
Drawing by Robert Hancock (NPG 451).
1798
Caricature by Gillray, 'NEW MORALITY' (British Museum 9240 and The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, ed. Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, I, p 347).
c.1800
Oil of a young man thought to be Southey is among a group of the Coleridge circle portraits in a private collection, Devon; this certainly has the air of 'the beau ideal of a poet' noticed in his early days (The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, ed. Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, VI, p 2). Perhaps it is the oil by William Hazlitt mentioned in a letter from Coleridge to Southey, 1 August 1803: 'Young Hazlitt has taken masterly portraits of me and Wordsworth, very much in the manner of Titian. He wishes to take Lamb and yours' (cf. the entry for Lamb).
1803
Miniatures by J. Keenan exhibited RA 1803 (680) and RA 1814 (365) and in Ireland in 1817 (Daphne Foskett, Dictionary of British Miniature Painters, p 362).
1804
Drawing by Henry Edridge (NPG 119).
1806
Oil by Opie painted in 1806 for William Taylor of Norwich (Ada Earland, John Opie and his Circle, 1911, pp 316-17), engraved by Egleton as frontispiece to The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, ed. Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, I, and exhibited RA, Old Masters, 1876 (230) lent by Dr Reginald Southey.
1808-9
Miniature by Matilda Betham exhibited RA 1808 (77) painted for John Rickman (Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, ed. J. W. Warter, II, p 67) - 'a jovial landlord' in the Epistle; a copy signed and dated 1809 is in City of Bristol Museum & Art Gallery.
1808
Pencil and watercolour drawing by John Turmeau, Christie's (miniatures) 15 June 1982 (17), half-length profile to left signed and dated 1808.
1812
Drawing by John Downman in British Museum, half-length to right inscribed; Robert Southey Esq. A most celebrated Writer & Poet Laureate 1812 (Downman Sketchbook, IV, no.1). Downman also drew Edith Southey's portrait, engraved by Robinson for The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, ed. Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, vol.II.
Watercolour by Matilda Betham in City of Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, whole-length seated at a table writing, with a large book in front and wearing a shock of short curly hair.
1813
The Poet Laureateship became open at the death of Pye in August 1813 and the Prince Regent offered it to Scott who declined suggesting Southey. The situation was satirised by JC (or CJ) in 'RIVAL CANDIDATES FOR THE VACANT BAYS', showing a tipsy Prinny as Apollo, the Duke of Norfolk as Bacchus and Sheridan as Silenus on the slopes of Parnassus deciding between the rival poets - Byron, Skeffington, Tom Moore, Monk Lewis, Scott and Busby; Southey does not appear (BM 12082).
1814
Plaster bust by F. W. Smith made for C. W. Williams Wynn, exhibited RA 1814 (804) and demolished in 1835 by a shield falling on it in Wynn's dining-room (New Letters of Robert Southey, ed. Kenneth Curry, 1965, II, p 427).
Drawing by John Jackson made for John Rickman and known from H. Meyer's stipple in the New Monthly Magazine, I, 1 July 1814 (The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, ed. Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, IV, p 77). It came in for ferocious treatment in the Epistle to Allan Cunningham: 'Our next is in the evangelical line, A leaden-visaged specimen… etc' (Epistle, p 314). It was printed by 'the Arch-Pirate Galignani' in the 1829 edition of Southey's Poems, there attributed to Lawrence - 'a worsened copy of Fitzbust the Evangelical' (The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, ed. Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, VI, p 89).
1815
Drawing and oil by Phillips for John Murray, see NPG 4071.
1816-20
Drawings and miniature by Edward Nash, see NPG 4028.
1817
Southey's apostasy from ardent Republican to Conservative Poet Laureate was satirised by Williams in 'A POET MOUNTED ON THE COURT-PEGASUS', following the illicit publication of Wat Tyler (BM 12877 and Geoffrey Carnall, Robert Southey, 1960, pp 161-5).
1820
Oil by Rippingille at Clevedon Court, 'The Funeral Procession of William Canynge 1474', signed and dated 1820; Southey appears among the worthies of Bristol.
1823
Oil by Samuel Lane at Balliol College, Oxford (R. L. Poole, Catalogue of Oxford Portraits, II, p 30 and plate IV), mentioned in a letter to Mrs Southey 21 November 1823: 'I am sitting (woe is me!) to a deaf and dumb painter Dumbee' (New Letters of Robert Southey, ed. Kenneth Curry, 1965, II, p 254) and exhibited RA 1824 (383); mezzotint by Henry Dawe published 20 February 1826. Lane exhibited another portrait of Southey RA 1826 (316) and adapted the Lawrence portrait of 1828 for an engraving.
1824
Oil by Rippingille at Clevedon Court, 'The Travellers' Breakfast' exhibited RA 1824 (251); the scene shows the travellers breakfasting at an inn, Southey ogling Julia Abraham pouring out tea and surrounded by Coleridge, Lamb, Wordsworth and others of the circle. A portrait of Southey by Rippingille at one time belonged to Dr John King of Bristol.
1828-32
Marble bust by Chantrey (NPG 3956).
1828
Oil by Lawrence in the National Gallery of South Africa, Cape Town. Southey first mentions this in a letter to Mrs Thomas Hughes 21 January 1827: 'When next I may be in town I am to sit to your friend Sir T. Lawrence for Mr Peel. I have been made by different artists to look like a Methodist preacher, like an assassin, like a fop, like a fool, like a prig, like a sensualist, like a Jew who sells oranges, and like a fellow on trial for uttering false notes. What will Sir Thomas make me look like?' (Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, ed. by his son-in-law J. W. Warter, IV, p 46). Southey came to London in May 1828 to undergo a surgical operation and also for sittings to Lawrence and Chantrey (Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, ed. J. W. Warter, 1856, V, pp 325-7); the sittings to Lawrence were agreeable enough, the artist catching Southey's trick of sitting on his hands, and the portrait was exhibited RA 1829 (172); a variation of it by Samuel Lane was engraved by Lightfoot in Poetical Works (1 vol. edn. 1845) frontispiece. Wedgwood's stipple engraving in the Galignani edition of 1829 although attributed to Lawrence is in fact the Jackson portrait of 1814 - 'a spurious portrait to a faithless life...' (Epistle, pp 314-15).
Silhouette taken at Keswick: 'A little man, who is travelling about the country with some black paper and a pair of scissors as his stock in trade, took the profile of which you have a copy by Edith May ... I believe he sells me for sixpence among my neighbours and found mine a very profitable face even at that price' (letter to Caroline Bowles 2 February 1828, Correspondence of Robert Southey with Caroline Bowles, ed. Edward Dowden, 1881, p 132).
1832
Portrait by Lady Malet, the hospitable widow of Sir Charles Malet: 'Lady Malet is here and making a portrait of me which goes much nearer to satisfy everybody than any former attempt' (letter to Caroline Bowles from Keswick 17 September 1832, Correspondence of Robert Southey with Caroline Bowles, ed. Edward Dowden, 1881, p 261).
1834
Engraving by Maclise, 'The Fraserians', in Fraser's Magazine, XI, January 1835.
1835
Wax medallion by Wyon (NPG 2681).
1836
Oil by Henry Singleton painted for Thomas Poole and first mentioned to Southey's daughter Kate, 25 November 1836: 'Behold me once more under a painter's hands! One long sitting carried the portrait far enough for it to please everybody' (Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, ed. J. W. Warter, 1856, IV, p 478). It was exhibited RA 1838 (1180).
Undated
Oil by Hoppner exhibited RA, Old Masters, 1875 (70) as Castlereagh (lent by H. Johnson), sold Christie's, 5 July 1902 (30) and with Sotheby's, 7 November 1956 (7) bought C. J. Sawyer, see W. McKay & W. Roberts, John Hoppner R.A., p 241. Southey first met Hoppner in 1802 (New Letters of Robert Southey, ed. Kenneth Curry, 1965, I, p 240 but there is no record of a portrait and the identity of this one is very doubtful.
Miniature by Andrew Robertson at Dalchonzie, identity doubtful.
After 1839 his friends saw a marked change in his appearance: 'He is thin and shrunk in person, and that extraordinary face of his has no longer the fire and strength it used to have, though the singular cast of the features and the habitual expressions make it still a most remarkable phenomenon' (The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, ed. Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, VI, p 387).
Posthumous
Busts are by E. H. Baily in Bristol Cathedral, J. G. Lough in the NPG (841), and by Henry Weekes in Westminster Abbey.
This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: Richard Walker, Regency Portraits, National Portrait Gallery, 1985, 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.
1776
Miniature referred to in his poem 'On My Own Miniature Picture' written at Bristol in 1796 (The Poetical Work of Robert Southey collected by himself, 1838, II, p 231). He gave it to Caroline on their marriage in 1839.
1795
Oil by Peter Vandyke (NPG 193).
1796-1800
Miniature by James Sharples in City of Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, reproduced New Letters of Robert Southey, ed. Kenneth Curry, 1965, I, frontispiece. The Bristol Catalogue (no.31) says it was probably painted in Bath c.1792 but the shortness of the hair places it certainly well after the Peter Vandyke portrait of 1795.
1796
Drawing by Robert Hancock (NPG 451).
1798
Caricature by Gillray, 'NEW MORALITY' (British Museum 9240 and The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, ed. Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, I, p 347).
c.1800
Oil of a young man thought to be Southey is among a group of the Coleridge circle portraits in a private collection, Devon; this certainly has the air of 'the beau ideal of a poet' noticed in his early days (The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, ed. Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, VI, p 2). Perhaps it is the oil by William Hazlitt mentioned in a letter from Coleridge to Southey, 1 August 1803: 'Young Hazlitt has taken masterly portraits of me and Wordsworth, very much in the manner of Titian. He wishes to take Lamb and yours' (cf. the entry for Lamb).
1803
Miniatures by J. Keenan exhibited RA 1803 (680) and RA 1814 (365) and in Ireland in 1817 (Daphne Foskett, Dictionary of British Miniature Painters, p 362).
1804
Drawing by Henry Edridge (NPG 119).
1806
Oil by Opie painted in 1806 for William Taylor of Norwich (Ada Earland, John Opie and his Circle, 1911, pp 316-17), engraved by Egleton as frontispiece to The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, ed. Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, I, and exhibited RA, Old Masters, 1876 (230) lent by Dr Reginald Southey.
1808-9
Miniature by Matilda Betham exhibited RA 1808 (77) painted for John Rickman (Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, ed. J. W. Warter, II, p 67) - 'a jovial landlord' in the Epistle; a copy signed and dated 1809 is in City of Bristol Museum & Art Gallery.
1808
Pencil and watercolour drawing by John Turmeau, Christie's (miniatures) 15 June 1982 (17), half-length profile to left signed and dated 1808.
1812
Drawing by John Downman in British Museum, half-length to right inscribed; Robert Southey Esq. A most celebrated Writer & Poet Laureate 1812 (Downman Sketchbook, IV, no.1). Downman also drew Edith Southey's portrait, engraved by Robinson for The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, ed. Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, vol.II.
Watercolour by Matilda Betham in City of Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, whole-length seated at a table writing, with a large book in front and wearing a shock of short curly hair.
1813
The Poet Laureateship became open at the death of Pye in August 1813 and the Prince Regent offered it to Scott who declined suggesting Southey. The situation was satirised by JC (or CJ) in 'RIVAL CANDIDATES FOR THE VACANT BAYS', showing a tipsy Prinny as Apollo, the Duke of Norfolk as Bacchus and Sheridan as Silenus on the slopes of Parnassus deciding between the rival poets - Byron, Skeffington, Tom Moore, Monk Lewis, Scott and Busby; Southey does not appear (BM 12082).
1814
Plaster bust by F. W. Smith made for C. W. Williams Wynn, exhibited RA 1814 (804) and demolished in 1835 by a shield falling on it in Wynn's dining-room (New Letters of Robert Southey, ed. Kenneth Curry, 1965, II, p 427).
Drawing by John Jackson made for John Rickman and known from H. Meyer's stipple in the New Monthly Magazine, I, 1 July 1814 (The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, ed. Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, IV, p 77). It came in for ferocious treatment in the Epistle to Allan Cunningham: 'Our next is in the evangelical line, A leaden-visaged specimen… etc' (Epistle, p 314). It was printed by 'the Arch-Pirate Galignani' in the 1829 edition of Southey's Poems, there attributed to Lawrence - 'a worsened copy of Fitzbust the Evangelical' (The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, ed. Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, VI, p 89).
1815
Drawing and oil by Phillips for John Murray, see NPG 4071.
1816-20
Drawings and miniature by Edward Nash, see NPG 4028.
1817
Southey's apostasy from ardent Republican to Conservative Poet Laureate was satirised by Williams in 'A POET MOUNTED ON THE COURT-PEGASUS', following the illicit publication of Wat Tyler (BM 12877 and Geoffrey Carnall, Robert Southey, 1960, pp 161-5).
1820
Oil by Rippingille at Clevedon Court, 'The Funeral Procession of William Canynge 1474', signed and dated 1820; Southey appears among the worthies of Bristol.
1823
Oil by Samuel Lane at Balliol College, Oxford (R. L. Poole, Catalogue of Oxford Portraits, II, p 30 and plate IV), mentioned in a letter to Mrs Southey 21 November 1823: 'I am sitting (woe is me!) to a deaf and dumb painter Dumbee' (New Letters of Robert Southey, ed. Kenneth Curry, 1965, II, p 254) and exhibited RA 1824 (383); mezzotint by Henry Dawe published 20 February 1826. Lane exhibited another portrait of Southey RA 1826 (316) and adapted the Lawrence portrait of 1828 for an engraving.
1824
Oil by Rippingille at Clevedon Court, 'The Travellers' Breakfast' exhibited RA 1824 (251); the scene shows the travellers breakfasting at an inn, Southey ogling Julia Abraham pouring out tea and surrounded by Coleridge, Lamb, Wordsworth and others of the circle. A portrait of Southey by Rippingille at one time belonged to Dr John King of Bristol.
1828-32
Marble bust by Chantrey (NPG 3956).
1828
Oil by Lawrence in the National Gallery of South Africa, Cape Town. Southey first mentions this in a letter to Mrs Thomas Hughes 21 January 1827: 'When next I may be in town I am to sit to your friend Sir T. Lawrence for Mr Peel. I have been made by different artists to look like a Methodist preacher, like an assassin, like a fop, like a fool, like a prig, like a sensualist, like a Jew who sells oranges, and like a fellow on trial for uttering false notes. What will Sir Thomas make me look like?' (Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, ed. by his son-in-law J. W. Warter, IV, p 46). Southey came to London in May 1828 to undergo a surgical operation and also for sittings to Lawrence and Chantrey (Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, ed. J. W. Warter, 1856, V, pp 325-7); the sittings to Lawrence were agreeable enough, the artist catching Southey's trick of sitting on his hands, and the portrait was exhibited RA 1829 (172); a variation of it by Samuel Lane was engraved by Lightfoot in Poetical Works (1 vol. edn. 1845) frontispiece. Wedgwood's stipple engraving in the Galignani edition of 1829 although attributed to Lawrence is in fact the Jackson portrait of 1814 - 'a spurious portrait to a faithless life...' (Epistle, pp 314-15).
Silhouette taken at Keswick: 'A little man, who is travelling about the country with some black paper and a pair of scissors as his stock in trade, took the profile of which you have a copy by Edith May ... I believe he sells me for sixpence among my neighbours and found mine a very profitable face even at that price' (letter to Caroline Bowles 2 February 1828, Correspondence of Robert Southey with Caroline Bowles, ed. Edward Dowden, 1881, p 132).
1832
Portrait by Lady Malet, the hospitable widow of Sir Charles Malet: 'Lady Malet is here and making a portrait of me which goes much nearer to satisfy everybody than any former attempt' (letter to Caroline Bowles from Keswick 17 September 1832, Correspondence of Robert Southey with Caroline Bowles, ed. Edward Dowden, 1881, p 261).
1834
Engraving by Maclise, 'The Fraserians', in Fraser's Magazine, XI, January 1835.
1835
Wax medallion by Wyon (NPG 2681).
1836
Oil by Henry Singleton painted for Thomas Poole and first mentioned to Southey's daughter Kate, 25 November 1836: 'Behold me once more under a painter's hands! One long sitting carried the portrait far enough for it to please everybody' (Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, ed. J. W. Warter, 1856, IV, p 478). It was exhibited RA 1838 (1180).
Undated
Oil by Hoppner exhibited RA, Old Masters, 1875 (70) as Castlereagh (lent by H. Johnson), sold Christie's, 5 July 1902 (30) and with Sotheby's, 7 November 1956 (7) bought C. J. Sawyer, see W. McKay & W. Roberts, John Hoppner R.A., p 241. Southey first met Hoppner in 1802 (New Letters of Robert Southey, ed. Kenneth Curry, 1965, I, p 240 but there is no record of a portrait and the identity of this one is very doubtful.
Miniature by Andrew Robertson at Dalchonzie, identity doubtful.
After 1839 his friends saw a marked change in his appearance: 'He is thin and shrunk in person, and that extraordinary face of his has no longer the fire and strength it used to have, though the singular cast of the features and the habitual expressions make it still a most remarkable phenomenon' (The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, ed. Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, VI, p 387).
Posthumous
Busts are by E. H. Baily in Bristol Cathedral, J. G. Lough in the NPG (841), and by Henry Weekes in Westminster Abbey.
This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: Richard Walker, Regency Portraits, National Portrait Gallery, 1985, 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.