Porträt Joseph Addison (1672-1719)

Portrait of Joseph Addison. One sees a chest image of the English politician, poet and journalist. It is frontally oriented and the depicted one has turned the head slightly to the right and holds it obliquely. He critically patterns the viewer out of his leaf. His clothes are simple, he wears wig. Joseph Addison was friends with Richard Steele (BS-III 210), the later writer. They brought together “The Spectator” in 1711, in which contributions by Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope also appeared. In 1699 he founded the already discussed Kit-Kat-Club in London with friends. Addison’s one-year libretto “Rosamond” remained unsuccessful. Due to the octagonal shape and the execution as a puncture, the assumption is that the Schumann brothers from Zwickau published the sheet in their publication “Pictures of the most famous people of all peoples and times” (supplement to every biographical dictionary, especially the conversation lexicon). This is also supported by the fact that the leaf is circumcised and its signature usually appears slightly further below the inscription, as well as the distance between the image and inscription, which is always the same. Until now, the paper has not been proved in one of the publications, but the British Museum in London, the Austrian National Library in Vienna and the LWL Museum of Art and Culture in Münster have the complete sheet and confirm the assumptions here. Signature: Kneller pinx. Fr. Bolt 1820. Caption: J. Addison. (Stiftung Händel-Haus Halle Foundation)