Charles Dickens The Lost Portrait
About the exhibition:
Charles Dickens: The Lost Portrait will be the first public display of Margaret Gillies’ portrait of the author since it was last exhibited in 1844. It will be a truly unique opportunity to see this rarity in person along with other notable Dickens artefacts and relics on loan to Philip Mould & Company from the Charles Dickens Museum and notable private collections. Shown alongside the portrait will be Dickens’ hairbrush and leather case, six of his razors, a travelling oval mirror, a monogrammed perfume bottle, his travelling writing desk and quill, first editions of A New Spirit of the Age and A Christmas Carol, select letters from Dickens to Gillies, the original preliminary sketches for A Christmas Carol designed and completed by John Leech, depictions of Dickens’ children by Daniel Maclise and a portrait bust of Dickens prior to his voyage to America in 1842. This highly intimate collection of objects provides a rare glimpse of Dickens the man, also shown in Gillies’ masterful portrait, and serves to reinforce our understanding of the author at a pivotal moment in his career. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue presenting new research on the lost portrait.
