Garrick and his Wife
William Hogarth, artist
H. Bourne, engraver
Oil on canvas
39 x 52 inches
Source: 1853 Art-Journal
“In this picture Garrick is seated at his writing-table; Mrs. Garrick has apparently entered the room unobserved, and is about to snatch the pen from the hand of her husband, while the latter is in a reverie; he is writing his "Prologue to Taste." The idea seems to be borrowed from Vanloo's picture of "Colley Cibber and his Daughter," painted in 1740, and engraved by E. Fisher, in 1758.” [Commentary continues below.]
Image capture and formatting by George P. Landow..
Commentary by the Art-Journal
The portraits he painted are scarcely known, though had he produced nothing more than these, his name would not have been lost to posterity, for they possess great merit; indeed he met with very considerable success when he first took the house in Leicester Fields and commenced portraiture; but it could scarcely be expected that one who sometimes made courtiers and high-born dames the subjects of his satire, would be permitted to portray them as they desire to be represented: moreover such labour but ill accorded with his genius and tastes, and he only practised it occasionally; while even then, as in the united portraits of "Garrick and his Wife," some gleams of his natural humour would break forth. . . .
Hogarth's picture has been twice exhibited at the British Institution, once in 1814, and also in 1853. Mrs. Garrick was the daughter of a respectable citizen of Vienna, and was engaged as a dancer at Drury Lane Theatre in 1746: three years afterwards she was married to her husband, whom she survived upwards of forty-three years. In 1823, the year after her death, this picture was sold, at the sale of her effects, to the late Edward Hawke Locker, Esq, one of the commissioners of Greenwich Hospital. . . this gentleman, however, relinquished it to George IV., who added it to the collection at Windsor, where it now hangs.
Bibliography
"The Royal Pictures: Garrick and his Wife." Art-Journal (1853): 42. Hathi Trust Digital Library version of a copy in the University of Michigan Library. Web. 21 August 2013.
Last modified 1 September 2013