Johnson as Icon
Shortly Will Be Published, (By Subscription) a Portrait of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. [London: A. Wivell, 1815] *2003J-SJ1198 |
William Thomas Fry, after Abraham Wivell. Samuel Johnson, L.L.D. ... From the Original Bust by Joseph Nollekens. [London: A. Wivell, 1815] |
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In 1776, Johnson sat for the era's leading sculptor of portrait busts, Joseph Nollekens (1737-1823), who entered the result in an exhibition at the Royal Academy the following year. Johnson was pleased with the likeness, but his female friends, including Lucy Porter and Hester Thrale, appear to have rejected it. Abraham Wivell, who found his entrée to the world of art in his role as Nollekens's barber, offered an engraving of his drawing of the bust in 1815, advertised by means of the prospectus shown here. Although Nollekens's original clay model of the bust is now lost, a marble version graces Johnson's memorial in Westminster Abbey. |
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