Estate / Collection: The Howard Phipps, Jr. Collection, Erchless, Old Westbury

Portrait of the Irish Actor Charles Macklin
Oil on canvas, within a painted oval
30 x 25 inches (76.2 x 63.5 cm)
Frame 36 1/2 x 31 1/4 inches (92.8 x 79.5 cm)
Provenance:
Gooden and Fox, London
[Sale] Christie's London, July 4, 1911, lot 55, as by John Opie
Charles Macklin (1699-1797) was born into a family of impoverished Irish gentry in County Donegal. His family soon moved to Dublin, where he attended school and later worked as a servant at Trinity College. Around 1708 he left Ireland for England, working at whatever jobs he could find. By 1720 he had made his way to the theater, appearing with various companies touring the British provinces. In 1733 his career received a lift, owing to an actors' strike at the Drury Lane theater in London. The sudden departure of most of the resident company left the theater in desperate need of players, an opening that allowed Macklin to take on substantial roles for which he normally would have had to wait for years.
In 1740, Macklin first appeared as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, which he played with such riveting animus that it transformed Macklin from a work-a-day performer to a leading light of the London stage. Audiences loved his portrayal of Shakespeare's villain, a role that would become a staple of his repertoire for the next half-century.
Macklin's later life was marred by a succession of quarrels, lawsuits, a venomous feud with his colleague and one-time friend David Garrick, and increasingly poor health. His last performance was on May 7, 1789, as Shylock, which he was forced to interrupt owing to his inability to remember his lines--a sad ending to the career of one of the titans of the 18th-century English theater.