Albert Moore

This portraitback to top

Like NPG 2375, this is one of a large number of drawings and sketches acquired from the estate of Sydney Prior Hall. The sitter is very doubtfully identified as Albert Moore, who is not known to have been acquainted with Hall and was ‘of a most retiring disposition’. [1] Known likenesses of Moore show a heavy beard but shorter, well-trimmed hair, so this may not be his portrait.

If it does depict Moore, it could have been sketched on one of two occasions when he appeared in public: during the defamation suit brought by James McNeill Whistler against John Ruskin in 1878, when on 25 November Moore testified for Whistler; [2] or at a meeting at the Grosvenor Gallery on 1 February 1879 when he took an uncharacteristically leading role against proposed legislation concerning artistic copyright, and was deputed with others to lobby the government on the issue. [3] As a graphic journalist, Hall may well have been present on these occasions.

Other sketches on the sheet show (lower right) a hand holding a pen or pencil and (upper left) and open notebook, with the word ‘red’ inscribed alongside and ‘?’ inscribed above. These pencillings support the inference that the head was sketched on a public or semi-public occasion, without the sitter’s knowledge.

Dr Jan Marsh

Footnotesback to top

1) M. Marks, ‘My Notebook’, Art Amateur, Nov. 1893, p.132.
2) See Asleson 2000, p.155.
3) Reported in the Builder, 8 Feb. 1879, p.159; others on the deputation were W.B. Richmond, H. von Herkomer and A.F. Fripp.

Physical descriptionback to top

Head, seen from behind, profile nearly perdu to right, shaggy hair and ?grey beard.

Provenanceback to top

With the artist and his heirs, from whom purchased.

View all known portraits for Albert Joseph Moore