Description
The composition of the set is symmetrical and orderly, with similar sized profile figures facing one another from either side around the roughly circular frontal portrait of Samuel Johnson at the center. As explained on the card label verso handwritten by the collector with initials, J.S., in Richmond, England, he collected the wax figures over a lifetime from various travels “round about the world” and made this framed arrangement. It is No. 14 of his larger collection of 24 framed portrait arrangements that he put together. Given the disparate nature of some of the various individuals shown, it can be deduced that the wax portraits were selected, and then arranged aesthetically, rather than on attributes such as field or nationality.
The portraits include manuscript identification names below each figure, confirming the varied selection from the world’s most famous historical figures to some that are lesser known today. Samuel Johnson (1709-1984) was an English essayist and early writer of an English language dictionary. The others are French philosophers Voltaire (1694-1778) and Rousseau (1712-1778); English poet Thomas Chatterton (1755-1770); playwright and poet William Shakespeare (1564-1616); empress of Russia and cultural patron Catherine of Russia (1729-1796); Scottish novelist, historian, and poet Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) and Miss Mary Warren, whose identity and rationale for inclusion here is uncertain. She might be the same “Miss M. Warren” photographed as a young woman in 1861 by Camille Silvy, a 19th-century portrait photographer of global aristocracy and British royals whose portrait is in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Manuscript text of original card verso: [? Richmond [England]. Within this Frame, and in the 23 others which are its fellows, I have placed my collection of waxed portraiture: – Likenesses of those famous and infamous ones – living and long since dead – which I have gathered in my [personal ones with a ?] & round about the world. No 14 – J. S.
Condition: Generally very good with the usual light overall wear and handling. Some shrinkage to frame at miters. Manuscript card verso a bit darkened and brittle with age.
References:
“Catherine the Great.” Wikipedia. 10 November 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_the_Great (11 November 2024).
“Jean-Jacques Rousseau.” Wikipedia. 10 November 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau (11 November 2024).
“Samuel Johnson.” Wikipedia. 10 November 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Johnson (11 November 2024).
Silvy, Camille. “Miss M. Warren.” National Portrait Gallery London. 1861. https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw282209/Miss-M-Warren (11 November 2024)
“Thomas Chatterton.” Wikipedia. 10 November 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Chatterton (11 November 2024).
“Voltaire.” Wikipedia. 10 November 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaire (11 November 2024).
“Walter Scott.” Wikipedia. 6 November 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Scott (7 November 2024).
