Mid-Georgian Portraits Catalogue

Elizabeth Griffith (1727-1793), Playwright and novelist

See also J. M. S. Tompkins, The Polite Marriage, 1938, p 195.

1778
Painting by Richard Samuel, Portraits in the characters of the Muses, see NPG 4905.

1775-80
Drawing by the Rev J. Thomas, engraved MacKenzie 1801, bust-length oval with a head scarf (Lady’s Monthly Mag.). She appears a little younger than in the anon. engraving of 1780.

1780
Anon. engraving, pub. Fielding & Walker 1780, bust-length oval within an elaborate surround (masks, a lute, and books titled Letters of Henry and Frances [1757]/Del[icate] Distress [1769-70]/Lady Barton [1771]/Morality and Shakespeares Drama [1775]).

Tompkins also mentions now untraced portraits of her by ‘Pyne’ [presumably R. E. Pine] at Hendersyde Hall (light-brown hair and a long nose) and a youthful pencil drawing by Giles Hussey made in Ireland.



This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: John Ingamells, National Portrait Gallery: Mid-Georgian Portraits 1760-1790, National Portrait Gallery, 2004, 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.