George III Watercolour Portrait of the Actor, John Bernard

based on the painting by Samuel de Wilde, now in the Garrick Club, showing Mr Bernard in the role of Jack Meggot from The Suspicious Husband in 1791

The scene is set in St James’s Park, Act I, scene 3. In the left distance are the west towers of Westminster Abbey. Frankly and Bellamy, in amorous pursuit of Clarinda and Jacintha, meet Frankly’s friend Jack Meggot, a dilettante who has just returned from Rome. One of his Roman prizes was the monkey Otho, who has died after breaking a great deal of china and gnawing Meggot’s Spanish leather shoes.

In the original painting by Samuel de Wilde, Meggot wears black shoes, white hose, pink breeches, a green coat lined in pink, a pink waistcoat, and a white stock with frills, however, in the present watercolour his costume is of a different colouring, suggesting that it was based on a colourless engraving after the original oil painting, the curious spelling of his name as Mr Barnard rather than Bernard also suggests this theory.

Benjamin Hoadley’s comedy The Suspicious Husbandwas first performed at Covent Garden on 12 February 1747, with Garrick (in his only season at that theatre) as Ranger and Mrs Pritchard as Clorinda. Bernard’s first performance as Jack Meggot was at Covent Garden on 2 January 1788, and he had played the role ten times by 8 June 1791.

Presented within an elaborate mount and in a water-gilt frame