Sculpture of the Day: Edmund Kean as Richard III, 1840

Figure, 1840
The Victoria & Albert Museum

We’ve seen another Staffordshire figure of Richard III which was based on a painting by William Hogarth of David Garrick playing the role in the play by William Shakespeare. Here, we see a figure of the great English actor-manager Edmund Kean (1787-1833) in the title role of Shakespeare's Richard III. Kean first played Richard III at Drury Lane Theatre in 1814 and it became one of his most celebrated roles, along with Macbeth and Iago. The poet Coleridge commented that watching Kean act was like “reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning.”


This glazed figure of Edmund Kean as Richard III. He stands with his legs apart, his weight on his left leg with the knee bent. He is looking to his right, wearing white breeches striped in gold, a white breast-plate delineated with gold, and a knee-length cloak lined in orange and edged with a white border which is meant to simulate ermine. The figure is said to accurately reproduce the costume worn by Kean as Richard III.