Henry Kirke White

This portraitback to top

The medallion is Chantrey's plaster model for the marble memorial commissioned by a young American admirer, Francis Boott, and set up in All Saints Church, Cambridge in 1819. Dr Boott described its inception: 'You ask whether Chantrey ever saw the poet. Never - The Medallion was made from a profile under the eye of Neville White whose head and features Chantrey told me assisted him in the execution ...' (letter to Scharf 25 February 1860 in NPG archive). All Saints was demolished in 1870 and the memorial transferred to the ante-chapel of St John's College, Cambridge (Venn's Alumni Cantabrigensis). A copy by W. T. Hale exhibited RA 1868 'to be placed in Wilford Church, Nottingham' is in the north aisle of Wilford church, where there is also a stained glass window to his memory (Pevsner, Nottingham, p 204). The memorial is referred to in the The Remains of Henry Kirke White of Nottingham, 1822, III, p xv: 'A tablet to Henry's memory …’.

Physical descriptionback to top

Profile to left, not incised.

Provenanceback to top

Dr Francis Boott and given by him in 1860.


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 Sir Francis Leggatt Chantrey

View all known portraits for Henry Kirke White