Art Institute of Chicago
David Garrick as King Lear
Richard Westall (English, 1765-1836)LinkedCulture matchlcp-01a0056fb5c5
- Date
- c. 1815
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Culture
- United Kingdom
- Department
- Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Institution
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Object ID
- 146648
From the Art Institute of Chicago record
David Garrick, one of the most influential actors of 18th century Britain, appears here in the guise of the titular character from William Shakespeare’s King Lear , a role he played numerous times on the stage. The play follows Lear’s mental breakdown after he relinquishes his power and divides his kingdom between two of his daughters. In this portrait, made after Garrick’s passing and based on prints created from his death mask, the actor wears a crown of wheat and wildflowers in reference to a famous scene in the play during which the king rages at a storm, daring it to harm him.
The authoritative record is held by Art Institute of Chicago. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.
Get printable QR codesHide QR codes
Open QR codes for this object page and the museum record. They stay collapsed until needed.
Provenance & credit
As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.
- Credit line
- Gift of Richard L. Feigen
- Provenance
- Alfred Wilson Harris (died 1932), Peoria, Illinois, and Cleveland, Ohio, probably acquired in Europe in 1918/19 [information given in a conversation of March 23, 2004, between Nancy Newberry, granddaughter of A.W. Harris, and Tiffany Johnston; see memorandum in curatorial file]; by descent to his son, Thomas William Harris, Bay Village, Ohio; consigned by him to the Vixseboxse Art Gallery, Cleveland, before 1958 [according to letter of November 10, 1958, from T. W. Harris to Mr. Vixseboxse; copy in curatorial file]; given by him to the Akron Art Institute, Akron, Ohio, in 1958 and accessioned as 58.212 [according to correspondence and records supplied by the Akron Art Museum]; deaccessioned by the Akron Museum of Art, 1981 [according to the records cited above, in 1980 the Akron Art Institute changed its name to the Akron Museum of Art]; sold, Sotheby's, New York, January 8, 1981, lot 76, to Richard Feigen, New York, and P. & D. Colnaghi and Company, London, in joint ownership [buyers according to e-mail correspondence of December 11, 2015, between Frances Beatty of Richard Feigen and Company, and Amanda Block; copy in curatorial file]; all shares sold to Richard Feigen, March 1, 1981 [see previous citation]; given to the Art Institute, 1996.
Linked open data
Authority identifiers that link this record into the wider web of cultural data — stable references you can follow to the source.
- Object type
- AAT300033618
Related across collections
Semantically similar works from Art Institute of Chicago and other institutions.