David Garrick and Hannah Pritchard (née Vaughan) in Benjamin Hoadly's "The Suspicious Husband"

David Garrick was the greatest actor of the eighteenth century. He revolutionized British theater and almost singlehandedly revived the reputation of William Shakespeare. A close friend of William Hogarth and the artists in his circle, Garrick was skilled in using contemporary art to promote himself and his Drury Lane theater company. This theatrical portrait of Garrick and Hannah Pritchard represents a scene from Benjamin Hoadly’s popular comedy The Suspicious Husband (1747) in which Ranger, played by Garrick, accidently propositions his own cousin, Clarinda, only to be humiliated as she unmasks herself. It was commissioned by Hoadly to mark the extraordinary success of his play; another version was painted for Garrick and is now in the Museum of London. The frame, of an exceptionally rare pattern, is possibly the original.

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016