The Don

Artist: Frances Hodgkins (1869—1947)
Date: c1890
Place: Dunedin
Media: watercolour on paper
Dimensions: 128 × 87 mm
Catalogue number: 2023–1–03
Credit line: The Field Collection, Toi Mahara

This is a portrait of John Lawrence Toole, known as J L Toole (1830—1906), an English comic actor, actor manager and theatrical producer. He toured New Zealand in 1890, starting on 1 October in Dunedin where he gave ten nightly performances at the Princess Theatre. The characters he played included Joe Spriggens in the play by T H Williams, Ici on parle francais and the ‘Don’ in the play of the same name written by Herman Charles Merivale specifically for Toole. There are two other watercolours of the same model in the Hodgkins Family Sketchbook held in the Alexander Turnbull Library (E-315-q-1).