SIR SQUIRE BANCROFT
Whose model as Triplet, together with the model of Lady Bancroft as Peg Woffington, are on exhibition at Madame Tussaud’s.
When the models of Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft were added to the Exhibition, in the characters of Peg Woffington and Triplet in Masks and Faces, reference to this was made in our Easter announcement.
Sir Squire Bancroft tells the following story in this connection:
“A young man from the country visited the Exhibition on Easter Monday of that year, and went straight to the Chamber of Horrors. He said he wanted to see the ‘squire who murdered a triplet’!”
They tell me that Henry Irving came to see his portrait a year after I had modelled him, but, unfortunately, I missed the great actor that day.
Mention of Irving takes my mind back rather a long way, to the time when I had the pleasure of introducing his model and that of Miss Ellen Terry to the Exhibition. They were on the eve of making their first journey across the Atlantic, and they cheerfully consented to enable me to let the public see them in their absence.
Irving was an ideal sitter, as might be expected of a great actor. He adapted himself to my requirements in every detail, and gave me to feel that he took great pleasure in my work. I very soon became aware of Irving’s kindliness of heart and his sympathy with an artist at his labours.
Conversation turned upon the question of insuring Madame Tussaud’s against fire, and Irving remarked that money would be a very poor compensation for the loss of our irreplaceable collection, especially having regard to the relics of Napoleon and the heads of the French revolutionaries.
The actor told me of an alarming experience he had while acting at the Lyceum Theatre.