Jonathan Peckover (1835-1882)

Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson (London 1853 - 1937). Oil painting on canvas. Jonathan Peckover (1835-1882) by Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson (London 1853 - 1937). Painted oval. Half-length portrait, turned slightly to the right, gazing at the spectator, short brown hair, beard and moustache, wearing a black suit, wing collar and black tie. Gilt frame. Apparently a study for - or derived from - the possibly posthumous whole-length portrait of the sitter (PEC/P/?) And evidently bought by his only and younger brother Alexander, later Baron Peckover, from the artist a year after his death. Much more celebrated as an actor (for which he was knighted in 1913) and actor-manager of the Lyceum (when his first Hamlet, played at the age of 44 in 1897, was such as to make Sir Henry Irving say he would never play the role again), Johnston Forbes-Robertson's heart was always in his first avocation as a painter (his father, John Forbes-Robertson, was an art critic) and he is said to have been proudest of all of the fact that his portrait of Samuel Phelps (his elocution teacher) as Cardinal Wolsey hangs in the Garrick. Most of his portraits were of actors. It seems surprising for him to have undertaken so routine - not to say so hack - a task as an official (and possibly posthumous) portrait as this full-length, so perhaps he and Jonathan and/or Alexander Peckover were friends. Peckover House, Cambridgeshire (Accredited Museum)