John Horne Tooke

1 portrait matching these criteria:

- place 'London'

John Horne Tooke, by Sir Francis Leggatt Chantrey, circa 1810 -NPG 316a(122) - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Mid-Georgian Portraits Catalogue

John Horne Tooke

by Sir Francis Leggatt Chantrey
circa 1810
14 1/2 in. x 10 7/8 in. (368 mm x 276 mm)
NPG 316a(122)

Inscriptionback to top

Inscribed in pencil, bottom left: John Horne Took and in ink verso: Measured Drawing of John Horne To ...

This portraitback to top

Walker commented that this drawing appears to be ad vivum and not drawn with the camera lucida.
Chantrey was pleased to comment that Tooke’s head ‘possessed a complete resemblance to the bronze of Voltaire’, remarking that ‘all the parts were well defined and highly finished, so as to exhibit a flowing curvilinear surface, combined with a marked character’. [1] The plaster bust, exhibited at the RA in 1811, first established his reputation as a portrait sculptor. Tooke had been his mentor in his early days in London and Chantrey always spoke of him ‘as one of the wisest and most judicious friends he ever encountered’, [2] who had warned him to avoid ‘even the appearance of leaning towards any party in politics’.

Footnotesback to top

1) A. Stephens, Memoirs of John Horne Tooke, 1813, II, p 447.
2) Fraser’s Mag., XLI, 1850, p 456.

Referenceback to top

Walker 1985
R. J. B. Walker, National Portrait Gallery, Regency Portraits, 1985, I, pp 624, 629.

Physical descriptionback to top

Profile bald head to right.

Provenanceback to top

Chantrey’s executor George Jones RA, by whose widow presented in 1871.1

1 See R. J. B. Walker, National Portrait Gallery, Regency Portraits, 1985, I, pp 624-25.


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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