Later Victorian Portraits Catalogue

Doubtful self-portrait
By other artists
Photographs

Doubtful self-portraitback to top

Bronze bust, signed ‘Tho. Brock Sculptor’, no date; untraced; Christie’s, 15 July 1993 (252), ‘possibly a self-portrait’.

By other artistsback to top

1876
Drawing, 300 x 500mm, by Theodore Blake Wirgman for The Volunteers at Wimbledon – the Artists Corps after a skirmish, inscr. lower left, crouching down, leaning forwards slightly, near-profile to left, to the right of Philip Richard Morris; untraced. Wood-engr. repr. Graphic, 22 July 1876, p.81; loose print Henry Moore Inst., Leeds, Thornycroft Archive, TII - E69.
See also Horsley, Leighton, Marks, P.R. Morris, Prinsep, W.H. Thornycroft, Wynfield.

exh. 1880
Oil on canvas by Johnston Forbes-Robertson; untraced. Exh. RA 1880 (336).

publ. 1883
Wood engr. by unidentified engraver after unidentified artist/photographer, head-and-shoulders to left, full head of hair, dark beard and moustache. Repr. ILN, Fine Art Supplement, 12 May 1883, p.469.

1888
Oil on panel by Theodore Blake Wirgman, signed and dated, half-length to left in feigned oval, moustache, no beard; Aberdeen AG, ABDAG003519.

exh. 1890
Oil on canvas by Henry Jamyn Brooks; untraced. Exh. RA Winter 1890 (387). [1]

c.1892
Pen and ink drawing by Reginald Cleaver; see NPG 4245.

exh. 1895
Oil on canvas by Leonard Watts; untraced. Exh. RA 1895 (584).

publ. 1898
Wood engr. by unidentified engraver after unidentified artist (?Henry Jamyn Brooks), head-and-shoulders to right. Repr. Tit-Bits, 26 Nov. 1898, p.166.

publ.1902
Pen and ink caricature drawing by (John) Bernard Partridge, A Council at the Royal Academy, head and shoulders, leaning forward with crossed arms, in back row forth from right, wearing toga; untraced. Repr. Punch, 21 May 1902, p.363; and Trippi 2002, p.167, fig.136.
See also Alma-Tadema, Crane, East, Frampton, Goodall, Herkomer, Orchardson, Poynter, Richmond, Stone, J.H. Thomas, Thornycroft, J.W. Waterhouse, Watts, Wells, Whistler.

1905
Watercolour drawing by Leslie Ward (‘Spy’); see NPG 5393.

1908
Oil on canvas, 2972 x 6223mm, by Hubert von Herkomer, The Council of the Royal Academy, head-and-shoulders with spectacles, third from right in multi-figure group; Tate, N02481. Repr. Herkomer 1910–11, vol.2, facing p.64; and Mills 1923, facing p.298.
Photogravure, 335 x 710mm, signed by artist and sitters, publ. Franz Hanfstangel; ref. Bonhams, 29 Mar. 1990 (171).
See also Gregory, Herkomer, Poynter, Solomon.

exh. 1920
Oil on canvas by Edmond Brock, three-quarter-length, seated, full-face; untraced. Exh. RA 1920 (650); repr. RA Illustrated 1920, p.58.

Photographsback to top

reg. 1889
Platinum print by Ralph Winwood Robinson, whole-length, standing in studio with model for statue of Sir Bartle Frere (1888, Victoria Embankment, London); reg. for copyright 1889 Oct. 23: National Archives (copy 1/398/121); NPG x7354. Publ. Robinson [1892], no.47.
This remains the primary image of Brock as a younger man.

publ. 1889
Albumen cabinet card by Maull & Fox, head-and-shoulders to left; NPG x4676. Repr. The Year’s Art 1889, facing p.170; AJ, 1891, p.125.

publ. 1892
Thumbnail sketch after an unidentified photograph. Repr. Pall Mall Gazette ‘Extra’, no.62, 2 May 1892, p.14, ‘Portraits of the RAs and ARAs’.

1899
Carbon print, 227 x 315mm, by Fradelle & Young, in multi-figure group at a banquet in honour of Lawrence Alma-Tadema at the Whitehall Rooms, London, 4 Nov. 1899 (presence confirmed on sheet of over 100 signatures); NPG x19022. Repr. MA, 1900, p.137 (with signatures insert); and Swanson 1990, p.85.
See also Alma-Tadema, Boughton, Clausen, J. Collier, Crane, East, E.O. Ford, Frampton, Gregory, Hacker, Lucas, Parsons, Sant, Solomon, Spielmann, W.H. Thornycroft, J.W. Waterhouse, A. Webb.

1901-10
Albumen print 140 x 101mm, by Russell & Sons, head-and-shoulders to right
Cabinet photograph by Russell & Sons, head-and-shoulders to right; print NPG x4675 and NPGP1700(94a) (albumen print). Repr. ILN, Christmas number, 1985, p.61.
This is the primary image for Brock as an older man.

publ. 1903
Photographs by Ernest Herbert Mills, three known poses:
(i) half-length to right, in studio with bust of Queen Victoria. Repr. Black and White Handbook 1903; Stocker 1997, p.48.
(ii) three-quarter-length, full-face, in studio with bust of Queen Victoria, head-and-shoulders, full-face, slightly to left. Repr. London 1907–9, p.52.

reg. 1908
Photograph by C. Hankins, whole-length, standing to left, head turned to front, right hand resting on statue for Queen Victoria Memorial; reg. for copyright 1908 July 10: National Archives (copy 1/523/196).

1921
Photographs by Frederick William Braddock, Surbiton, 28 May 1921, two known poses:
(i) whole-length, standing in group with A.B. Burton and staff at the A.B. Burton Foundry, Thames Ditton, Surrey, Brock’s equestrian statue of Edward VII (1919, cast 1921) in background; prints colls NPG x45231; Elmbridge M., Weybridge, Surrey.
(ii) whole-length, standing in group with George V and Queen Mary and A.B. Burton, equestrian statue of Edward VII in background; prints colls NPG x45232 (mount stamped: ‘The visit of their Majesties the King and Queen with Sir Thomas Brock / to the Works of A.B. Burton Esq, Thames Ditton, May 28th, 1921’); Elmbridge M., Weybridge, Surrey.


Footnotes
1) ‘The year of the Winter Exhibition when these pictures were shewn of course can easily be obtained from the Royal Academy or from a catalogue and if you put the year in which I painted the portrait of Sir Thomas Brock two years earlier. you will not be far wrong.’ Letter from H.J. Brooks to C.J. Holmes, 30 Jan. 1914, NPG RP 1833. Brock was not included in Brooks’s Private View of the Old Masters Exhibition, Royal Academy, 1888.

Carol Blackett-Ord