Mrs. Abington as Thalia
Not on view
Beauty and talent propelled Fanny Barton (later Mrs. Abington) to fame, from humble beginnings as a flower girl and milliner's assistant. Associated with the Drury Lane Theatre, she excelled in contemporary comic roles by Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Colley Cibber and, in Shakespeare's plays, performed Ophelia, Desdemona, Beatrice and Portia. Horace Walpole compared her favorably to Garrick, and the artist James Northcote noted that, "in her acting she has all the simplicity of nature and not the least tincture of the theatrical." In this image she embodies Thalia, the muse of music, dance, comedy and idyllic poetry, to crown Shakespeare with laurels.
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