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Find your local specialistWilliam Wellings (British, fl.1778-1796)
Watercolour on paper, signed and dated on the obverse and inscribed with the sitters' names on the reverse, carved, gilded and ebonised frame.
Rectangular, 155mm (6 1/8in) high
Literature: Martin Riley, 'William Wellings' Silhouettes', The Antiques Collector, June 1989, p.142, ill. fig. 1
Footnotes
Wellings' earliest known work, a drawing of the actress Miss Younge as Imoinda in Oroonoko, is dated 1779. Although he adapted his watercolours of theatrical subjects to meet the public demand for silhouettes, he continued to paint theatrical mementoes on commission. In his advertisement of October 1792, he claims that 'Theatrical Portraits finished in any character required on a few days' notice'. The play in the present lot must have been performed some years before the piece was executed, as Garrick had died in 1779.
Garrick (1717-1779) dominated the English stage as an actor and joint manager of Drury Lane in the mid-eighteenth century. Mrs Barry (1734-1801) was a moderately successful actress, her first performance recorded as that of Cordelia in King Lear, opposite her second husband, Spranger Barry, in the lead. Her last performance was in 1798.