1838
Etching
RP-P-1897-A-19379
Throughout the modern period artists have learned their craft by copying other artists, and Johnson was no exception. Johnson's existing copies after other artists are limited to John Philip Kemble as Hamlet, a mezzotint after Thomas Lawrence. —PH
MacGibeny, 2022: Sir Thomas Lawrence's original painting of British actor John Philip Kemble as Hamlet, 1801, was acquired by the National Gallery in London in 1836. Since Johnson had not been to Europe by the time he made this drawing in 1845, it is most likely that he would have made this drawing from a mezzotint print. Philip H. Highfill, Jr., A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660–1800, Vol. 8, 1982, notes that at least fourteen period prints were made after Lawrence's painting. In Johnson's drawing, Kemble's face is truer to Lawrence's painting than are some of the prints, such as the linked etching by James Egan, 1838 (Rijksmuseum).
1999: Anchor bottom right. Typical E.J. eyebrows: light and shadow. Church in distance. Check Lawrence portrait of Kemble as Hamlet.
John Philip Kemble (1757–1823). British actor and theater manager.
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