Robert Southey

Inscriptionback to top

Incised: L.G.LOUGH/1845.

This portraitback to top

The Gallery was notified of the bequest (actually to the National Gallery but later altered to the NPG) by an executor who wrote: 'The Bust was modelled within a year or two of the Poet's death from portraits by Opie and Lane? under the supervision of the late Dr H. H. Southey, the Poet's brother who considered it an excellent likeness …' (letter from William Gonne, 8 July 1890, in NPG archive). Lough also exhibited RA 1845 (1335) 'a recumbent figure, part of a monument about to be erected in Keswick church'. This is in fact in Crosthwaite church near Keswick and a picture of it was engraved by T. Flemming for the The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, ed. Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, VI, frontispiece (Country Life, 10 August 1940, p 130). Dr Shelton Mackenzie told Southey's son that 'the only thing in art which brings him exactly before me, is the monument by Lough the sculptor' (The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, ed. Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, VI, p 304).

Provenanceback to top

Family possession and bequeathed by the sitter's niece Miss Emma Southey 1890.

Exhibitionsback to top

RA 1845 (1384).


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.

View all known portraits for Robert Southey