Lost Portrait Of Charles Dickens Turns Up At Auction In South Africa

[appalachiablue]

Source: The Guardian

Margaret Gillies’ 1843 work, found among trinkets, depicts author as young literary star.

A portrait of a young and handsome Charles Dickens that was lost for 174 years has been discovered in a tray of trinkets at an auction in South Africa. The discovery is one of the most remarkable finds of recent memory. The art dealer Philip Mould, who was instrumental in its identification, said: “I’ve spent a career specialising in British art and this ranks among the most exciting things we have ever discovered. It is the lost portrait.”

It was found last year in a general sale in Pietermaritzburg in the South African province of Kwazulu-Natal. A man paid the equivalent of £27 for a cardboard tray containing a metal lobster, an old recorder, a brass plate and a small painting which was so covered with mould that the face could barely be made out.

The finder took it out of the frame, which he sold. “He was moments away from basically throwing away this fungus-covered picture and then he started looking at it and realised that the face was very compelling,” said Mould. With the help of some online research the finder realised it had the look of Dickens, which prompted him to contact Mould’s gallery and the miniatures consultant Emma Rutherford.

She came to me and said something extraordinary has come up – it has an appearance of the lost portrait of Charles Dickens,” said Mould, who is best known for Fake or Fortune, the BBC One series he presents with Fiona Bruce. -MORE...

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/21/lost-portrait-charles-dickens-turns-up-auction-south-africa-margaret-gillies

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It became clear that the work must be the lost Dickens portrait by the artist Margaret Gillies, an early women’s suffrage supporter. The portrait was painted in late 1843 when Dickens was aged 31. At the time Dickens was a rising literary star working on 'A Christmas Carol,' and in 1844 the painting was exhibited and acclaimed at the Royal Academy of Arts.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the poet noted that the work showed Dickens as having “the dust and mud of humanity about him, notwithstanding those eagle eyes”. The portrait was used as the frontispiece of 'A New Spirit of the Age,' (1844) a book of essays on the cultural figures of the day- Tennyson, Browning and Mary Shelley. Dickens was the 1st chapter.

Bah humbug! Happy Holidays!

[brooklynite]

1. Meh, he hasn't come out with a new story in years.....

[Sneederbunk]

4. Yet Little Jimmy was still proud of his ancestor.

[skamaria]

5. Hah!

I think his ancestor was the first one to leave his chewing gum on the bedpost overnight!

[LakeArenal]

2. I have read every Dickens' novel.

Is it accomplishment or abnormality?

[JI7]

3. joy

[Byronic]

6. I call it excellent taste.

[LakeArenal]

7. For me, there were no better vacation books.

As a teenager, I read them while lying in the sun reading a big thick book like any Dickens. Then as an adult, air planes, traveling, hospital waiting rooms anywhere to make time go by.

Many folks in interviews make a Dickens reference and I usually get it. I like that. Pretty obscure skill.

[lilactime]

8. Accomplishment. I've read many but not all.

[lilactime]

9. This is so cool. I've been to the Dickens House twice and would LOVE

to go again.

[Byronic]

11. I know what you mean.

Especially this time of year. Christmas at the Dickens House Museum would be something special. I think Simon Callow is doing a reading of A Christmas Carol.

So many of our Christmas traditions can be traced to Dickens and that small volume he published in 1843.

Ironically, I don't have much time on my hands to go to the museum in Doughty Street next month, as I am playing the role of Ebeneezer Scrooge, in a schedule that is very time consuming.

[lilactime]

13. That's amazing! I'd love to see it!

[blue-wave]

10. The article doesn't state but

I hope they found an expert preservationist that was able to clean the mold and fungus from the painting. What a wonderful find and interesting story of how the painting was almost lost.

[suffragette]

16. They did. The portrait in the OP is the restored one. CNN notes it took 2 months to clean the

mold after it was sent for appraisal to - yes- Philip Mould. Just the sort of coincidence Dickens loved to write about.

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/charles-dickens-portrait-scli-intl/index.html

"It was electrifying when it first came into the gallery, even though it was obscured by mold," art dealer Philip Mould, whose firm Philip Mould & Company authenticated the work, told CNN.

"He is really dashing in the portrait, with brown eyes that fix you -- which the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning described as eagle eyes."

Mould said Dickens' eyes "shone through" in the portrait in spite of the damage, adding that it took two months to restore the artwork.

"It was almost as if he was coming to life," Mould, said of the portrait, which will be on public display at his gallery from Thursday -- its first London exhibition since 1844.

[suffragette]

12. Dickens would no doubt appreciate that an appraiser named Mould saw through the mold on the

painting to identify it.

He did enjoy playing with names.

[appalachiablue]

14. I thought it was an error, then a joke/pun. But the

art dealer, Philip Mould is for real. Bizarre!

[suffragette]

15. A very Dickensonian coincidence!

[MineralMan]

17. I highly recommend his book, "American Notes for General Circulation"

It's a travelogue on his trip to the United States in 1842. He traveled here with his wife and her maid. They traveled for almost six months, seeing the east coast and Great Lakes region. His comments on American culture of the time and his excoriating attacks on slavery are well worth reading.

If you have an e-reader, you can download the book for free at gutenberg.org for Kindle or in PDF format.

Every American Dickens fan really needs to read this, not only for his wonderful language, but to see a picture of our nation at the time from his point of view.