Nancy Hallam as Imogen, by Charles Willson Peale, Annapolis, 1771.


Charles Willson Peale's oil on canvas painting of Nancy Hallam, depicts the actress performing a scene from Shakespeare's Cymbeline. Hallam is situated in front of a grotto entrance, dressed like a man to fool an unwanted courtier.
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In 1771, Charles Willson Peale painted this portrait of actress Nancy Hallam, dressed in her costume as the boy Fidele in Shakespeare's Cymbeline. Hallam was a cousin of Lewis Hallam the younger, who in 1752 had brought the first theater company from England to the colonies. Based in New York, Hallam's company also performed in Philadelphia in the 1750s and 1760s.