Thomas Gainsborough was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Along with his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds, he is considered one of the most important British artists of the second half of the 18th century. He painted quickly, and the works of his maturity are characterised by a light palette and easy strokes. Despite being a prolific portrait painter, Gainsborough gained greater satisfaction from his landscapes. He is credited as the originator of the 18th-century British landscape school. Gainsborough was a founding member of the Royal Academy.
Sir Thomas Lawrence was an English portrait painter and the fourth president of the Royal Academy. A child prodigy, he was born in Bristol and began drawing in Devizes, where his father was an innkeeper at the Bear Hotel in the Market Square. At age ten, having moved to Bath, he was supporting his family with his pastel portraits. At 18, he went to London and soon established his reputation as a portrait painter in oils, receiving his first royal commission, a portrait of Queen Charlotte, in 1789. He stayed at the top of his profession until his death, aged 60, in 1830.
Sarah Siddons was a Welsh actress, the best-known tragedienne of the 18th century. Contemporaneous critic William Hazlitt dubbed Siddons as "tragedy personified".
George Stephen Kemble was a successful English theatre manager, actor, and writer, and a member of the famous Kemble family. He was described as "the best Sir John Falstaff which the British stage ever saw" though he also played title roles in Hamlet and King Lear among others. He published plays, poetry and non-fiction.
John Philip Kemble was a British actor. He was born into a theatrical family as the eldest son of Roger Kemble, actor-manager of a touring troupe. His elder sister Sarah Siddons achieved fame with him on the stage of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. His other siblings, Charles Kemble, Stephen Kemble, Ann Hatton, and Elizabeth Whitlock, also enjoyed success on the stage.
Kemble is the name of a family of English actors, who reigned over the English stage for many decades. The most famous were Sarah Siddons (1755–1831) and her brother John Philip Kemble (1757–1823), the two eldest of the twelve children of Roger Kemble (1721–1802), a strolling player and manager of the Warwickshire Company of Comedians, who in 1753 married an actress, Sarah Ward. Roger Kemble was born in Hereford, and was a grand-nephew of Father John Kemble, a recusant Catholic priest, who was hanged in that city in 1679. Three younger children of Roger, Stephen Kemble (1758–1822), Charles Kemble (1775–1854), and Elizabeth Whitlock (1761–1836), were also actors, while Ann Hatton was a novelist.
Thomas Sully was an English-American portrait painter. He was born in England, became a naturalized American citizen in 1809, and lived most of his life in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, including in the Thomas Sully Residence. He studied painting in England under Benjamin West. He painted in the style of Thomas Lawrence and has been referred to as the "Sir Thomas Lawrence of America".
George Frederick Cooke was an English actor. As famous for his erratic habits as for his acting, he was largely responsible for initiating the romantic style in acting that was later made famous by Edmund Kean.
John Bell (1745–1831) was an English publisher. Originally a bookseller and printer, he also innovated in typography, commissioning an influential typeface that omitted the long s. He drew the reading public to better literature by ordering attractive art to accompany the printed work.
Mary Ann Davenport [née Harvey] was a British Shakespearean actress.
George Henry Harlow was an English painter known mostly for his portraits.
The Warwickshire Company of Comedians, also known as Mr Ward's Company of Comedians and after 1767 as Mr Kemble's Company of Comedians, was a theatre company established by John Ward in Birmingham, England in the 1740s, touring throughout the West Midlands region and surrounding counties over subsequent decades. Unusual in the 18th century as a provincial company producing performances to London tastes and standards, it is particularly notable as the origin of the Kemble family theatrical dynasty, which was to dominate the English stage in the late-18th and early 19th centuries. Sarah Siddons and John Philip Kemble in particular, who were Ward's grandchildren and whose careers began in the company, were the leading actress and actor of their time, and are still considered among the greatest performers in English theatrical history.
John Henderson (1747–1785) was an English actor who played many Shakespearean and other roles. He first acted in Bath, where he was known as "The Bath Roscius", and then in London. Had he not died young he would have been remembered as a worthy successor to David Garrick.
Jane Powell or Mrs Powell was a British actress. She was also known as Mrs Renaud and Mrs Farmer.
John Alais was a skilled engraver working in London and Argentina.
Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse, or Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse, is a 1783–1784 painting by English painter Sir Joshua Reynolds. The 1784 version is in the Huntington Library art museum, while a 1789 reproduction from Reynolds's studio is in the Dulwich Picture Gallery.
William Brereton was an English stage actor. He was a member of the company of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane for eighteen years, under the management of David Garrick and subsequently Richard Brinsley Sheridan. He was born in Bath, the son of William Brereton who was master of ceremonies in the spa town. He made his Drury Lane debut in the title role of Douglas by John Home in 1768. Weakened by alcoholism and mental instability, he died in an asylum in Hoxton in 1787. He was married to the actress Priscilla Brereton, who later married John Philip Kemble. He was said to have had an unrequited passion for Sarah Siddons which contributed to his mental decline.
Portrait of John Philip Kemble is a 1799 portrait painting by the British artist William Beechey depicting the stage actor John Philip Kemble.
Portrait of Sarah Siddons is an 1804 portrait painting by the English artist Thomas Lawrence depicting the actress Sarah Siddons.
John Philip Kemble as Coriolanus is a 1798 portrait painting by the English artist Thomas Lawrence depicting the British actor John Philip Kemble appearing in the role of Coriolanus in the William Shakespeare tragedy of the same title. Kemble was the leading male actor of the era, frequently appearing alongside his sister Sarah Siddons in London's West End. Having first appeared in the part in 1789, it became one of Kemble's greatest roles. It portrays Coriolanus banished from Rome and plotting his revenge. Francis Bourgeois had previously produced the same scene and exhibited it in 1797.
