Later Stuart Portraits Catalogue
Sir Richard Steele (1672-1729), Dramatist and essayist
- Gallery portraits
- All known portraits
- Biography and References
Writer and politician, member of the Kit-Cat Club; Christ Church 1689 and Merton College, Oxford, 1691-92; served in Flanders c.1693-94; captain 1702, left the army 1705; editor London Gazette 1707-10; founded the Tatler 1709-11 (in which he wrote as Isaac Bickerstaff) and, with Addison, the Spectator 1711-12; MP between 1713 and 1727; briefly expelled for his outspoken defence of the Hanoverian succession; governor of Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, 1715-20; Kt. 1715; retired to Carmarthen (where his second wife had been born).
When aged about fifty, Steele, in the third person, reflected on his portraiture:
‘I have order’d new Editions of his face, after Kneller, Thornhill and Richardson … He is painted by the First resolute, by the Second thoughtful, and by the Third indolent. Sir Godfrey bewail’d that Carraccio was not living when he sate to him; and when he took Pencil in Hand, repeated this Sentence out of Mr Steele’s Epistle to the Bailiff of Stockbridge: He is gone but a little way in the Course of Virtue, who cannot bear Reproach for her sake. You may observe a Roughness in the Portraiture, from the Rigour of that Thought, which has occasion’d that most Ladies chuse Mr Richardson’s Work rather than Sir Godfrey’s’ (Steele, The Theatre, XII, 1720).
‘the best-natured creature in the world; even in his worst state of health he seems to desire nothing but to please and be pleased’ (Edward Young, 1729?).
This extended catalogue entry is from the National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: John Ingamells, National Portrait Gallery: Later Stuart Portraits 1685-1714, National Portrait Gallery, 2009, 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.
When aged about fifty, Steele, in the third person, reflected on his portraiture:
‘I have order’d new Editions of his face, after Kneller, Thornhill and Richardson … He is painted by the First resolute, by the Second thoughtful, and by the Third indolent. Sir Godfrey bewail’d that Carraccio was not living when he sate to him; and when he took Pencil in Hand, repeated this Sentence out of Mr Steele’s Epistle to the Bailiff of Stockbridge: He is gone but a little way in the Course of Virtue, who cannot bear Reproach for her sake. You may observe a Roughness in the Portraiture, from the Rigour of that Thought, which has occasion’d that most Ladies chuse Mr Richardson’s Work rather than Sir Godfrey’s’ (Steele, The Theatre, XII, 1720).
‘the best-natured creature in the world; even in his worst state of health he seems to desire nothing but to please and be pleased’ (Edward Young, 1729?).
This extended catalogue entry is from the National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: John Ingamells, National Portrait Gallery: Later Stuart Portraits 1685-1714, National Portrait Gallery, 2009, 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.