Mary Moore

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Extended catalogue entry

Mary Moore, by Sydney Prior Hall, 1887 -NPG 2370 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

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Mary Moore

by Sydney Prior Hall
pencil, 1887
4 3/8 in. x 6 in. (112 mm x 152 mm)
NPG 2370

Inscriptionback to top

insc. by artist lower left: 'Mrs Albery (Mary Moore). / David Garrick / - 87'

This portraitback to top

This is one of three sketches by Sydney Prior Hall showing the sitter playing the role of Ada Ingot in David Garrick, during a special evening performance of the play given at Sandringham on 7 January 1887 (see also NPG 2371 and NPG 2372). These were used as preparatory studies for the artist’s finished drawing depicting the final scene in the play, which was published in the Graphic on the 29th of that month (see ‘All known portraits, In stage character, David Garrick, publ. 1887’). There Hall shows Moore with her future husband, Charles Wyndham, in a tender pose also found in various studio photographs of the pair in the play (see, for example, ‘All known portraits, In stage character, David Garrick, Photographs, c.1888’, pose (b)). In the finished drawing the artist depicts the performance from off-stage with the actors in the foreground and the audience in the background, including the Prince and Princess of Wales and Prince Albert Victor in the front row. In NPG 2370, Hall experiments with capturing the sitter’s attitude as she is embraced by Wyndham, her gaze directed demurely downwards, her head resting on her right hand.

Charles Wyndham’s biographer Wendy Trewin provides a lively account of the evening and this extra detail of Moore’s experience: ‘After the night’s excitement (for which Wyndham received a silver loving-cup) she found the drive in the sharp air over the snow to King’s Lynn wonderfully calming.’ [1].

For further information on this performance, see the entry for Charles Wyndham, NPG 2373.

For other portrait drawings included in H.R. Hall’s gift to the Gallery, see NPG Portrait Set ‘Miscellaneous drawings: The Parnell Commission, Members of the House of Lords and the House of Commons by Sydney Prior Hall, circa 1886–1903’.

Elizabeth Heath