Portrait of Captain Thomas Coram [SEP] creator
Portrait of Captain Thomas Coram
Portrait of Captain Thomas Coram is a 1740 portrait of philanthropist Thomas Coram painted by William Hogarth. The portrait, which represents Hogarth’s highest achievement in direct portraiture, was not created as a commission and was instead donated to Coram's Foundling Hospital. The portrait is divided into two sections: The left side represents Coram's sea ventures, a major source of his wealth. The right side shows a curtain pulled over a mother figure with a child/
The painting is now in the collection of
, afterwards beheaded on Tower Hill, had an exceptional success. In 1740 he created a truthful, vivid full-length portrait of his friend, the philanthropic Captain Coram for the Thomas Coram Foundation for Children, now in the Foundling Museum, and his unfinished oil sketch of a young fishwoman, entitled "The Shrimp Girl" (National Gallery, London), may be called masterpieces of British painting. There are also portraits of his wife and his two sisters, and of many other people, among them Bishop Hoadly and