Thomas Hicks (American, 1823-1890)

Edwin Booth as Iago
Signed and dated "T Hicks/18..." l.r., identified on a type label affixed to the
frame backing.
Oil on canvas, 14 1/8 x 10 in. (35.8 x 25.5 cm), framed.
Condition: Lined, retouch, craquelure.

Provenance: Ex collection James Abbe, Jr., Oyster Bay, New York.

N.B. The label affixed to the back gives the date of the painting as 1864, although the full date is no longer legible due to surface restoration to the l.r. corner. After Edwin Booth's critically acclaimed portrayal of Iago in Shakespeare's Othello in 1860, Thomas Hicks painted a full-length, life-sized portrait of the actor in that role. The artist subsequently made at least four small copies. In addition to the painting at hand, versions are located at the Hampden-Booth Theatre Library in New York, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, and the Century Association, New York. Another copy was sold by Adelson Galleries, Inc., 154 Newbury St., Boston in the late 1960s or early 1970s; the current owner is unknown. The painting being offered here may be the one sold at Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, January 26, 1974, lot 550. Hicks enjoyed a close friendship with Booth, and the full length portrait served to bolster his own fame as an artist while celebrating Booth's talents. The portrait was not a commissioned piece, since Hicks kept the portrait himself. However he also lent it to the actor for display at upcoming performances, exhibiting it in Philadelphia and New York City. The success of the Iago portrait led Hicks to paint Booth in the Shakespearean roles of Hamlet, Shylock, and Richelieu as well. Theatrical portraiture was a bridge between the respected genre of history painting and more common genre of portraiture, and the Shakespearean theme endowed the work with higher regard due to its literary and historical associations. (See the Doctoral Thesis of Letha Clair Robertson, The Art of Thomas Hicks and Celebrity Culture in Mid-Nineteenth-Century New York, University of Kansas, 2010).

Condition: An area of retouch to l.l. corner partially obscured the last digits of the date.