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James Figg

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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James Figg

by Robert Grave, after John Ellys
line engraving, published 1819
7 3/4 in. x 5 5/8 in. (197 mm x 143 mm) paper size
Given by the daughter of compiler William Fleming MD, Mary Elizabeth Stopford (née Fleming), 1931
Reference Collection
NPG D27667

Sitterback to top

  • James Figg (1684-1734), Prize-fighter. Sitter in 2 portraits.

Artistsback to top

  • John Ellys (1701-1757), Portrait painter. Artist associated with 26 portraits.
  • Robert Grave (1768-1825), Printseller. Artist associated with 31 portraits, Sitter in 3 portraits.

Portrait setback to top

Subject/Themeback to top

Events of 1819back to top

Current affairs

Peterloo Massacre leaves eleven dead and four hundred wounded as crowds, gathered to hear radical Henry Hunt call for reform of the House of Commons, are forcibly dispersed.
Six Acts are passed, stiffening the 1795 Treason Act and introducing a tax on the periodical press which was viewed as seditious.

Art and science

Percy Bysshe Shelley writes Ode to the West Wind during a year of extraordinary creativity in which he also finishes Prometheus Unbound.
Lord Byron publishes his tour-de-force Don Juan; one man's mock-epic odyssey through a world without fixed principles.
First ship with a steam engine crosses the Atlantic in twenty-eight days.

International

Thomas Jefferson establishes the University of Virginia.
Royal Navy anti-slave squadron is set up to patrol the West African coastline.
French physician Rene Laennac invents the stethoscope.

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