Samuel Phelps

Inscriptionback to top

Inscribed in blue crayon (bottom right): -1 ½ - and on the back in pencil: Phelps

This portraitback to top

This and NPG 3596 form part of a large collection of Furniss drawings in the NPG. A third drawing of Phelps by Furniss is reproduced in his Some Victorian Men (1924), facing p 148; it shows Phelps making his farewell appearance on the stage, as Brutus.

Provenanceback to top

The artist; purchased from his sons, through Theodore Cluse, 1947.

Reproductionsback to top

Reproduced Furniss, Confessions of a Caricaturist (1902), I, 24, with the title, 'Phelps, the first actor I saw'.


This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: Richard Ormond, Early Victorian Portraits, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1973, 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.

View all known portraits for Harry Furniss

View all known portraits for Samuel Phelps