Charles Daly in 'Robert Macaire'

From an album of theatrical portraits compiled by the actor (later actor-manager) Charles Daly. Amongst many better known celebrities of the stage, the album contains nearly twenty portraits showing Daly himself dressed as various characters in popular successes of the day.

According to an inked inscription on the album page, this particular portrait shows Daly in a production of Charles Selby's two-act melodrama Robert Macaire, first performed in 1834.

An unscrupulous swindler, the character Robert Macaire appears in a large number of plays, caricatures and other works of art. In French culture he represents an archetypal villain. He was originally conceived as a character in a serious melodrama of 1823 but was later recreated as a comic figure by the great French actor Frédérick Lemaître.

Photographed by John Hubbard of 1 Oxford Street, London.