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Sarah Siddons (née Kemble)

2 of 38 portraits of Sarah Siddons (née Kemble)

Sarah Siddons (née Kemble), by Gilbert Stuart, 1787 - NPG 50 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Sarah Siddons (née Kemble)

by Gilbert Stuart
oil on canvas, 1787
29 1/2 in. x 24 1/2 in. (749 mm x 622 mm)
Given by John Thadeus Delane, 1858
Primary Collection
NPG 50

On display in Room 19 at the National Portrait Gallery

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

  • Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828), Painter. Artist associated with 60 portraits.

This portraitback to top

Describing herself as an 'ambitious candidate for fame', Siddons used portraiture for publicity. Even before Stuart's portrait was completed it had received glowing reviews for its 'spirit and delicacy'.

Linked publicationsback to top

Subjects & Themesback to top

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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