Sir William Herschel
1 of 7 portraits by John Charles Lochée
- Overview
- Extended Catalogue Entry
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Sir William Herschel
by John Charles Lochée
plaster cast of bust, 1787
32 1/2 in. (826 mm) high
Purchased, 1958
Primary Collection
NPG 4055
Artistback to top
- John Charles Lochée (1751-1791), Sculptor. Artist or producer associated with 7 portraits.
This portraitback to top
Commissioned by Sir William Watson; apparently executed from a life mask according to Herschel's sister's description: 'an awful business it was to see a mass of Gips (i.e. plaster) poured by handfuls on the face ... the head leaning on the back of a Chair at an angle of 45 degrees ... with 2 straws in the nose to prevent suffocation'.
Linked publicationsback to top
- Hart-Davis, Adam, Chain Reactions, 2000, p. 68
- Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 300
- Walker, Richard, Regency Portraits, 1985, p. 247
Events of 1787back to top
Current affairs
Social reformers Granville Sharp and Thomas Clarkson found the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade in London with support from John Wesley, Josiah Wedgwood and others.George III shows first signs of mental instability in November.
Art and science
Painter Robert Barker takes out a patent on the Panorama..Astronomer William Herschel discovers the two moons of Uranus, Titania and Oberon.
The original Lord's Cricket Ground holds its first cricket match.
International
Captain William Bligh sets sail for Tahiti on The Bounty.First performance of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Don Giovanni at the National Theatre, Prague.
A British ship lands a party of freed slaves as the first modern settlers in Sierra Leone.
Captain Arthur Phillip leaves Portsmouth with eleven ships full of convicts to establish a penal colony in Australia.
Bahamas become a British colony.
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