John Wigan
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- Extended Catalogue Entry
© National Portrait Gallery, London
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John Wigan
by Unknown artist
oil on canvas, circa 1726-1739
49 1/4 in. x 39 1/2 in. (1251 mm x 1003 mm)
Purchased, 1967
Primary Collection
NPG 4588
This portraitback to top
The portrait is the only type extant. Identification rests largely on the early inscription, bottom left, Dr. Jn Wiggan. The painter has not been identified. The hand is competent, but rather stiff: there are affinities with Charles Jervas, but it is not by him. More detailed information on this portrait is available in a National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue, John Kerslake's Early Georgian Portraits (1977, out of print).
Linked publicationsback to top
- Kerslake, John, Early Georgian Portraits, 1977, p. 308
- Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 660
Events of 1726back to top
Current affairs
Mary Toft allegedly gives birth to sixteen rabbits in Godalming Surrey and becomes the subject of considerable controversy, involving the King's own physician Nathaniel St Andre. The story is later revealed to be a hoax.The Craftsman, a polemical political periodical, is launched by opposition leaders Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke and William Pulteney, 1st Earl of Bath.
Art and science
St Martin-in-the-Fields church in London is completed to the design of the architect James Gibbs.Jonathan Swift publishes his bitterly satirical Gulliver's Travels.
Poet Alexander Pope produces an English language translation of Homer's Odyssey.
Poet Allan Ramsay opens the first circulating library in Edinburgh.
International
French writer Voltaire begins an exile in England which lasts three years.City of Montevideo is founded by the Spanish in Uruguay.
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