Mid-Georgian Portraits Catalogue
John Henderson (1747-1785), Actor
- Gallery portraits
- All known portraits
- Biography and References
Actor; won a drawing prize at the Society of Arts 1761; first played at Bath 1772-77; played at Drury Lane 1777-78 and at Covent Garden from 1779; also performed at Dublin 1778 and 1779, Liverpool 1782 and 1783 and Edinburgh 1784; buried in Westminster Abbey.
‘As an actor he had many disadvantages to cope with. His height was below the common standard. He had an uncompacted frame. His limbs were ill proportioned; they were too short; he had not much of that flexibility of countenance which anticipates the tongue ... His temper was placid, and under very uncommon government’ (John Ireland, 1786).
‘his person was without either dignity or grace, and his eye, though well placed for expression, wanted colour, as his face, though rather handsome, was too fleshy to shew all the muscular action, in which expression resides’ (James Boaden, 1825).
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.
‘As an actor he had many disadvantages to cope with. His height was below the common standard. He had an uncompacted frame. His limbs were ill proportioned; they were too short; he had not much of that flexibility of countenance which anticipates the tongue ... His temper was placid, and under very uncommon government’ (John Ireland, 1786).
‘his person was without either dignity or grace, and his eye, though well placed for expression, wanted colour, as his face, though rather handsome, was too fleshy to shew all the muscular action, in which expression resides’ (James Boaden, 1825).
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.