Sir Samuel Garth 1661-1719 F. 1693

Portrait/X91

Sir Samuel Garth 1661-1719 F. 1693

From the studio of Sir Godfrey Kneller

Half length; long light brown wig; blue-grey eyes; long very dark puce coat; dark brown background; inscribed in small cursive writing at the bottom right hand corner: Sir Samuel Garth M.D./by Sir Godfrey Kneller.

<span class="wrapper"><p>It is a version of the portrait painted by Kneller about 1710 for the collection of portraits of members of the Kit-cat club. This collection, all painted by Kneller and all on one size of canvas (36 by 28 inches, which came to be known as the Kit-cat size), was originally kept in a special room by the publisher Jacob Tonson the elder, at his house; it now belongs to the National Portrait Gallery. The Kit-cat portrait was engraved in mezzotint by J. Simon, and then (1733) by J. Faber the younger, who engraved the whole collection, and there are several copies by later engravers. The painting in the College was engraved in line by R. Newton (for Effigies Poeticae, 1824).</p> <p>A second portrait, artist unknown, is in the National Portrait Gallery; a different portrait by Kneller is at Knole, and a head and shoulders attributed to Dahl is in the Royal Collection.</p></span>

English

Presented in 1763 by Dr. Charles Chauncey.*

* Chauncey was a considerable antiquarian and collector (see Munk, and the D.N.B.); he also presented a portrait of Dr. Mead to the College.

Oils on canvas, 36 by 27¾ inches

Samuel Garth was born at Bolam, Co. Durham (info from Sir C Booth 27/3/84), and educated at Cambridge and Leyden.

He became a Fellow at a time when the College had a plan to prescribe for the sick poor without charge and to provide them with medicines at cost price. The laboratory of the new College in Warwick Lane was to be fitted up to prepare the medicines and the adjoining room used as a store. This plan offended many apothecaries, who managed to rouse opposition to it in the College and block its progress. Garth, who warmly approved of the new charity, detested the action of the apothecaries and of some of his own colleagues, and exposed them in his lively satire, The Dispensary. The sketches of some of the physicians are severe and biting, and an interesting insight is provided into the history and manners of these men; the work was an immediate and popular success.

In 1700, Garth was responsible for having the neglected body of Dryden brought to the College in Warwick Lane, where it lay in state for ten days. He raised a subscription for the funeral expenses, pronounced a Latin eulogy over the poet's remains and followed the body from the College to Westminster Abbey, where it was buried between Chaucer and Cowley.

Garth was a member of the Kit-cat Club, which included "all the talents" of the Whig party. He contributed the verses inscribed on the club's drinking glasses and these were printed in Dryden's Miscellanies.