Colley Cibber bust in the NPG London and his realtionship with Alexander Pope

 

 Continuing the recent theatrical theme:

 

Colley Cibber  (1671 - 1757).

'The King of the Dunces' (Alexander Pope).

update 18 December 2024

Whilst research the portraits and sculpture of Anne Seymour Damer I came across a reference to the bust by Rackstrow

Horace Walpole wrote in an undated letter? of c. 1770's to the father  of Anne Seymour Damer "Good-night to you, to her Ladyship, and to the Infanta (Miss Conway), whose progress in waxen statuary advances so fast that by next winter she may rival Rackstrow's old man" from Anne Seymour Damer by Percy Noble 1908.

 

Variously attributed to Henry Cheere, Roubiliac and the latest suggestion of Benjamin Rackstrow of the Strand on rather flimsy evidence (none at all as far as I can see).

 

 

Painted Plaster, the turban is removeable.

673 mm tall.

Formerly in the collection of Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill.

 

 

 

 

 

Extract from the Strawberry Hill Auction Catalogue 13 May 1842.

Sold to Buckley Bolton Esq.

Most likely Dr George Buckley Bolton surgeon of 9 Pall Mall (d. July 1847).

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The Gentleman's Magazine in 1842 reports - lot 106 on the 17th day of the Strawberry Hill sale;

'A bust of Colley Cibber poet laureate when old in a cap, coloured from life ...... £2 5s, Russell.

Cibber gave it to Mrs (Kitty) Clive the actress and her brother Mr Radnor presented it after her death to Walpole'

 

 

Purchased 1896.

© National Portrait Gallery, London

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Colley Cibber aged 67.

Engraved by Gerard van der Gucht (c.1696 - 1776).

After the oil painting by Jean Baptiste van Loo (1684 - 1745).

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For the full text see -

http://www.archive.org/stream/apologyforlifeof01cibb/apologyforlifeof01cibb_djvu.txt

 

 Engraving by IS Miller after the portrait by van Loo.

1758

Image Courtesy Lewis Walpole Library.

 

' Colley Cibber, by Edward Fisher, printed for  John Spilsbury, 

after  Jean Baptiste van Loo.

1758 (1740) - NPG D2075 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

 

 

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A print by William Hogarth entitled A Just View of the British Stage from 1724.

depicting the managers of Drury Lane, (Robert Wilks, Colley Cibber, and Barton Booth) rehearsing a play consisting of nothing but special effects, while they used the scripts for The Way of the World, inter al., for toilet paper.

 

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Frontispiece from the Glasgow Edition of A Letter from Mr Cibber to Mr Pope.

1742.

 

A satire on Alexander Pope and his physical limitations.

 

Engraving 129 x 80 mm.

British Museum.

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Another engraving on a similar theme.

1742.

213 x 245 mm.

British Museum.

 

 

Attrib. to George Bickham the younger.

• An Essay on Woman, by the Author of the Essay on Man: Being
• Homer Preserv'd, or the Twickenham Squire Caught by the Heels.
• Satire on Alexander Pope and his physical limitations. A well furnished room into which, on the left, the Earl of Warwick enters remonstrating with Colley Cibber who has grasped the diminutive figure of Pope by the ankle, pulling him off a well-dressed but dishevelled prostitute whose naked thighs are revealed as she reclinines on an upholstered sofa. Cibber claims to have sav'd Homer, a reference to Pope's translation but also a double-entendre. On the floor lie Pope's wig and Cibber's play "The Nonjuror". On the wall are three pictures, one referring to a small officer attempting to beat an unperturbed grenadier, a scene from Pope's play, "Three Hours after Marriage" showing two men disguised as a mummy and a crocodile
• 
  
• 192 x 275 mm.

1742.

Text and Illustration British Museum

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Alexander Pope.

Engraving.

1733.

 https://www.grubstreetproject.net/people/85/images/frontispiece-to-ingratitude-to-mr-pope/

Frontispiece to Ingratitude: to Mr. Pope. Occasion'd by a Manuscript Handed About, under the Title of, Mr. Taste's Tour from the Land of Politeness, to that of Dulness and Scandal, &c. &c. (London: printed and sold by J. Dormer, 1733). 

A nobleman holds a struggling Alexander Pope at the hips while another urinates on his backside; a third stands to the left, laughing, while a fourth on the right observes. 

Pope cries out "Damn me if I don't put you all in the Dunciad!"