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David Garrick

31 of 3516 portraits matching these criteria:

- subject matching 'Pencil'

David Garrick, by Nathaniel Dance (later Sir Nathaniel Holland, Bt), 1771 -NPG 3639 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Mid-Georgian Portraits Catalogue

David Garrick

by Nathaniel Dance (later Sir Nathaniel Holland, Bt)
1771
5 3/8 in. x 4 1/2 in. (136 mm x 114 mm)
NPG 3639

This portraitback to top

The pendant drawing of Mrs Garrick [see NPG 3640] is inscribed on backboard verso: Dance delint./March 16/1771. On 25 July 1829 J. T. Smith saw in Garrick’s Villa ‘two drawings of Mr and Mrs Garrick, by Dance’, presumably NPG 3639 and 3640, ‘of which there are lithographic engravings by Mrs Solly, the daughter of the Rev Mr Racket, with impressions of which that lady honoured me for my wife’s illustrated copy of the Life of Dr Johnson’. [1] Both drawings have previously been attributed to George Dance, [2] but the similarity of the David Garrick to Nathaniel’s half-length portrait of 1773 establishes his authorship. At the time he made these drawings Dance was also painting his full-length of Garrick as Richard III. A similar drawing of Garrick in the Folger Shakespeare Library is inscribed David Garrick from a Sketch in Pencil made by the late George [sic] Dance, Esqr - - - - - - by Mrs Saml. Solly Daughter of the Revd Thomas Rackett.

Footnotesback to top

1) J. T. Smith, A Book for a Rainy Day, ed. W. Whitten, 1905, p 290. The lithograph of Garrick illus. Phillips sale cat., 19 March 1992, p 5.
2) Cf. D. Stroud, George Dance, 1971, pls. 55a, 55b.

Provenanceback to top

Inscribed verso: drawn by Dance of [sic] the breakfast Table//These two pencil drawing by Dance - hung up in Garrick’s study- and at Mrs Garrick’s death passed to Mrs J.G. Payne - née Garrick his niece - and at Mrs Paynes death came into the possession of her Godchild Miss Desirée D’Enville - my first wife - Mr Garrick always considered it the best likeness ever made of him. Mrs Garrick, née Violette is in her night Cap./W. E. Image/Herringswell/House [Mildenhall, Suffolk]. Presented by Miss Katherine R. Image, granddaughter of William Edmund Image, 1948.

Exhibitionsback to top

Nathaniel Dance, Kenwood, 1977 (28).

Reproductionsback to top

Mrs Dorothea Solly by 1829, lithograph (in reverse).


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.

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