A View of Cooke's Tomb in St. Paul's Churchyard, New York

This print, dated 1821, shows the churchyard of St. Paul's Chapel on Broadway (between Fulton & Vesey Streets) in lower Manhattan with Edmund Kean standing and gesturing towards the tomb of George Frederick Cooke (1756-1812), the celebrated British actor, who performed on stage in several cities in the eastern United States to enthusiastic audiences from 1810 until his death in New York in 1812. Kean is conversing with another man, Dr. John W. Francis (dressed in a dark suit and top hat), who was the physician who treated Cooke in his last illness (caused by alcoholism). The tomb monument, featuring a classical-style "flaming" urn atop a large rectangular pedestal bearing the inscription, was designed by William & John Frazee [John being a noted gravestone carver and sculptor of busts]. Part of the building of St. Paul's is shown in the right background. In the left background, there are tombstones (some tilting over); beyond several trees, there are a few buildings --the second one in from the left side of the image being the Park Theatre on Park Row.

Kean (1787 –1833), the renowned British Shakespearean actor affiliated with the Theatre Royal on Drury Lane in London, toured in United States in 1820 and 1821. During that visit, he arranged for Cooke's remains to be moved from a vault beneath St. Paul's and erected this monument in the churchyard as a tribute to his acting triumphs and to his memory. In the bottom margin of this print-- within a semi-circular design with an overturned goblet spilling wine (a vanitas symbol) at the top, there is a oval medallion portrait bust of Cooke flanked by two women in mourning. This historic tomb remains in St. Paul's churchyard to this day.