Mungo Park

Inscriptionback to top

Inscribed in Rowlandson's hand in ink: Mungo Park.

This portraitback to top

The broken nose which may owe something to satire, in fact answers the description of the African ladies at the court of King Al-Mami during Park's journey to the Niger in 1793: 'They rallied me with a good deal of gaiety on different subjects, particularly the whiteness of my skin and the prominence of my nose. They insisted that both were artificial. The first they said was produced when I was an infant by dipping me in milk; and they insisted that my nose had been pinched every day till it had acquired its present unsightly and unnatural conformation' (Travels).

Provenanceback to top

Barnet Antique Company; Wren Gallery Ltd Cambridge, and bought from there 1972 (it was accompanied by another Rowlandson drawing called 'The Hottentot Venus').


This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: Richard Walker, Regency Portraits, National Portrait Gallery, 1985, 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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