Later Victorian Portraits Catalogue

Paintings, drawings, sculptures and prints
Posthumous portraits
Photographs

Paintings, drawings, sculptures and printsback to top

early 1840s
Oil on ?ivory/panel by Margaret Gillies, head-and-shoulders, profile to left, looking upwards; untraced. [1] Repr. Maurice 1913, between pp.13–14 (possibly detail from a larger composition).

c.1864
Pencil drawing possibly by a member of the Barton family; see NPG 3804.

1877
Pencil drawing, 495 x 481mm, by Edward Clifford, signed and dated, head-and-shoulders to front, profile to left, hair tied back at nape, wearing lace collar; coll. Guild of St George, M. Sheffield, CGSG00243. [2] Repr. Maurice 1913, between pp.356–7; Chase 1929, frontispiece; Hill 1956, frontispiece; The Society of Housing Managers Quarterly Journal, Oct. 1962, vol.5, no.8; Help, no.8, Jan./Feb. 1969, p.17 (head only); Darley 1990, between pp.128–9; Clayton 1993, front cover; Guy 1994, back cover; Carr-Gomm 1996, frontispiece; Darley 2010, p.146 and front cover; and National Trust Magazine, Spring 2012, p.18. This image forms the basis for the portraits on the village sign and in a stained-glass memorial window (to Hill and the NT), Holy Trinity, Crockham Hill, Kent (1995).

1889
Oil on canvas? by Emilie Isabel Barrington, lifesize; untraced. Ref. Bell 1942, p.141; Westwater 1984, pp.133–4; and Mitchell 2004. [3]

c.1892
Drawing by unidentified artist, three-quarter-length to right, holding paper with both hands, delivering speech; untraced. Repr. as engr. in unidentified publication, 1 Oct. 1892; and Getty Images, 3398552 (where dated to 1892). [4]

1898
Oil on canvas by John Singer Sargent; see NPG 1746.
Oil on canvas copy by Reginald Grenville Eves after Sargent; NT, 32 Queen Anne’s Gate, London, 35180. Copied at the NPG between 2 Dec. 1920 and 31 Jan. 1921; ref. Register of appications to copy portraits, NPG 77/5.
Copy by Trixie Glover; Octavia Hill Birthplace Museum, Wisbech, Cambs.
Copy by unidentified artist; Octavia Hill Society of Philadelphia.

Posthumous portraitsback to top

c.1922–8
Alabaster effigy, modelled by Dora Abbott and carved by Edmund Burton, whole-length, recumbent to left; [5] Crockham Hill Church, Kent. Repr. Darley 1990, between pp.128–9; and Clayton 1993, p.22; also repr. as postcard (copy in volume of letters from Octavia Hill to Sydney C. Cockerell, Westminster Archives Centre, D. Misc. 84/2).

1924
Watercolour by ‘T.M.R’, half-length, profile to left, at right-hand edge of group seated around a table in discussion; coll. John Hammond (1994). [6] Repr. Waterson 1994, p.55 (captioned ‘National Trust Executive Committee Meeting on 15 April 1912, painted by T.M.R in 1924’).

2012
Six drawings by Quentin Blake, drawn to illustrate Jones 2012, front cover, pp.53, 81, 135, 145, 167; download from Demos website. Not based on known portraits, but a series of imagined scenes depicting moments in Hill’s life.

undated
Two large murals, with painted likenesses of Hill at various stages of her life; Octavia Hill Birthplace Museum, Wisbech, Cambs. There is also a mannequin on display depicting Octavia as a young woman and a stained-glass window with likenesses of Hill.

Photographsback to top

1864
Photograph by unidentified photographer, half-length, profile to right, standing second from left in group with her four sisters; untraced.
Large format photogravure; Octavia Hill Birthplace Museum, Wisbech, Cambs. Repr. Help, no.8, Jan./Feb. 1969, p.17; Darley 1990, between pp.128–9; and Darley 2010, p.43.

1882
Photographs by unidentified photographer, two known poses:
(a) head-and-shoulders vignette, profile to right, hair gathered at nape, wearing tunic with buttons down the front and lace collar; repr. Bell 1942, p.164; and Oldfield 2008, p.105.
(b) dressed as in (a), shoulders to front, profile to right, looking upwards; untraced.
Pastel or chalk drawing by D. Kimberly after (b), signed and dated; untraced. Repr. Maurice 1913, frontispiece (captioned ‘From a photograph enlarged by an American artist’); Help, no.8, Jan./Feb. 1969, p.17 (oval format); and National Trust Magazine, Spring 2012, p.9 (see for ref. NT Images, 6583).

c.1880s
Photograph by unidentified photographer, half-length, seated to right profile right, wearing shawl across shoulders, left hand raised to chin; priv. coll.

1893
Carte-de-visite by Elliot & Fry, head-and-shoulders vignette, almost profile to left, wearing lace collar with neck clasp; Octavia Hill Birthplace Museum, Wisbech, Cambs.

1902
Photograph by Frederick Hollyer, half-length to right, profile to right, seated with hands clasped on lap, in group with three sisters and Edmund Maurice; Octavia Hill Birthplace Museum, Wisbech, Cambs.
Cropped version showing Hill only against dark background; copy print in volume of letters from Octavia Hill to Sydney C. Cockerell, Westminster Archives Centre, D. Misc. 84/3. Repr. Tabor 1927; and Bell 1942, frontispiece.

early 1900s
Photograph by Elliott & Fry, three-quarter-length to left, facing front, seated at desk with quill in right hand, wearing dress with lace collar and cuff; priv. coll.; copy print in volume of letters from Octavia Hill to Sydney C. Cockerell, Westminster Archives Centre, D. Misc. 84/2. Repr. Hill 1933, frontispiece; Darley 1990, between pp.256–7; Whelan et al. 2005, front cover; and Darley 2010, p.258.

1907
Photograph by Elliot & Fry, head-and-shoulders to left, profile to left, with elbow propped on table and hands clasped, wearing dress with lace collar and cuff, amongst large group forming the Poor Law Commission; Octavia Hill Birthplace Museum, Wisbech, Cambs.
Cropped version showing Hill only against dark background repr. as photogravure by Emery Walker (with facsimile of Hill’s signature); loose prints, in volume of letters from Octavia Hill to Sydney C. Cockerell, Westminster Archives Centre, D. Misc. 84/2; and Octavia Hill Birthplace Museum, Wisbech, Cambs. Repr. National Trust Magazine, Autumn 1995, p.11.

1908
Photograph by Ernest Carrington Ouvry, [7] head-and-shoulders to front, fifth from left at back of family group, gathered outside The Warren, Crockham Hill, Kent; repr. Darley 1990, between pp.256–7; and Darley 2010, p.307.


Footnotes
1) Ref. Yeldham 1997, p.46.
2) In 1915, this drawing was with Harriot Yorke (Hill’s companion from 1878) at 190 Marylebone Rd; see letters from E.S. Maurice to C.J. Holmes, 14 Dec. 1914, 13 Feb. 1915 and 2 Mar. 1915, NPG RP 1746.
3) ‘Mrs Barrington proposes giving my portrait to Red Cross Hall. Now I can’t have this done, and I write to ask you, as a friend, to help, so the Committee should respect my wish about it and back me up in saying it cannot be.’ Letter from Octavia Hill to Sydney Cockerell, quoted Bell 1942, p.241. Westwater 1984, p.134 records an entry in Eliza Wilson’s (sister of Emilie Barrington) diary at this time: ‘March 28 1889 … Lady Grant Duff … lunched here and there were 26 visitors afternoon. All went to Emilie’s studio to see her portrait of Octavia Hill’. See also The Times, Saturday, 11 Mar. 1933, p.12: ‘It was while Miss Hill was sitting to Miss Barrington for her portrait that she explained to her the scheme for creating the National Trust.’ ‘A portrait of Miss Octavia Hill is about to be presented to the Red Cross street Coffee Hall in South London, with which that indefatigable worker’s name is so much associated. The painter is Mrs Russell Barrington.’ North-Eastern Daily Gazette, 2 Sept. 1890 (information provided by Dr John Price, Oct. 2012).
4) This is not a convincing likeness of Hill.
5) ‘Miss Yorke regularly took visitors to see the work in progress. Miss Abbott, now in her seventies, was finding the likeness a problem as she had only seen her subject four times and so had to rely on photographs. Nevertheless, Miss Yorke felt it was beautiful and dignified, “and a speaking likeness almost as if sometimes it were alive”’. Darley 1990, p.335.
6) As credited in Waterson 1994.
7) This information kindly provided by Jonathan Ouvry, email, 10 Feb. 2012.

Elizabeth Heath