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Mr. Quick as Vellum in Addison's Drummer
Samuel De Wilde (English, 1748–1832)
1792
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 36.8 × 27.9 cm (14 1/2 × 11 in.); Framed: 46.4 × 38.1 × 6 cm (18 1/4 × 15 × 2 3/8 in.)
- Culture
- England
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Purchased with funds provided by Kay Krehbiel, Lisbeth Stiffel, Rosemarie and Dean L. Buntrock, Richard and Nancy Spain, and The David Horn Family
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
This painting belongs to a sequence of portraits by Samuel De Wilde depicting famous British actors performing their best-known roles. Designed to serve as the model for a print marketed to the general public, the painting is a significant artifact in the historical development of celebrity culture. The subject of the portrait, John Quick, was among the most acclaimed comic actors of his generation and is shown here in the role of Vellum from Joseph Addison’s 1716 play, The Drummer. With a ruddy complexion and wig humorously askew, Quick is shown in the act of performing, seated in a spare interior and glancing stage left, perhaps at another character about to enter.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
