The Rabid Roué	The Distant Dreamer	The Wistful Orphan
After Northcote	James Northcote (1804)	William Say (after Northcote)
© The Wordsworth Trust, Dove Cottage, Cumbria	© The Master & Fellows of Jesus College, Cambridge	(NPG D19942) © National Portrait Gallery London

Captions and layout by courtesy of the celebrated art critic Mr Graham Davidson

Coleridge sat for James Northcote on 25 and 26 March 1804 just before setting off for Malta. The portrait was commissioned by Sir George Beaumont. Coleridge wrote to Humphry Davy on 25 March 1804: "I returned from Mr Northcote's having been diseased by the change of weather too grievously to permit me to continue sitting". (Letters ed. E L Griggs, Vol 2, 1101) In a footnote (1101-2) Griggs adds a quotes from The Faringdon Diary "March 26... Northcote shewed us a Head of Coleridge which He began yesterday and finished today. It is for Sir G. Beaumont, & is very like". The reference to "Head" most likely means that Northcote will only have painted that part of the portrait himself, leaving studio assistants to take care of the background.

Coleridge was writing about the finished portrait on 29 March saying "Northcote told me, that he could get his Portrait of me admirably copied for 4 or 5 guineas... and I have authorized him to have it copied..." (Letters II 1113). This was to be for his "Friends in the North", i.e. the Wordsworths. Griggs adds: "No such copy is known, but Beaumont had prints made of the Northcote portrait for Wordsworth and Southey".