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Paintings: G0677

Title

Alexander Pope

Technique

Oil on canvas

Subject

Character

Hamlet : Hamlet

Artist

Dimensions

Height: 74.3cm
Width: 61.6cm
height (frame): 85cm
width (frame): 72cm

Provenance

Thomas Harris; Harris sale, 12 July 1819 (20); Charles Mathews

Other number

Mathews 152
RW/CKA 422

Exhibition history

1833 London, Queen's Bazaar, Oxford Street, "Mr Mathews's Gallery of Theatrical Portraits" (152) 1982-3 London (125)

Literature

“Morning Herald” 22 March 1794; Hayes 1968

Half-length. Hamlet wears black, with a lace vandyke collar. Across his chest there are white bands edged in red. His bedraggled powdered hair is brushed back.
Pope played Hamlet for the first time at Covent Garden on 30 October 1793, the occasion for Dupont's picture which was finished when mentioned in the “Morning Herald” on 22 March 1794. Holman was the usual Hamlet at Covent Garden, but Pope played the part again once more during the 1793-4 season, on 10 May 1794, when the playbill claimed the play was mounted at "the particular Desire of his Excellency the Ambassador from the Sublime Porte" (Ussuf Adijah Effendi).
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