Later Victorian Portraits Catalogue

Self-portraits
By other artists
Possible portraits
Photographs

Self-portraitsback to top

undated
Two drawings; untraced; cited as ‘Emilia by herself’ in inventory of pictures and objets d’art compiled by Charles Dilke, 1885, BL, London, Add. Ms.49422, f.19. Only one (pen and ink) drawing is listed by C. Dilke in letter to Lionel Cust, 12 June 1905, NPG RP 1603.

By other artistsback to top

c.1862–3
Oil on millboard by Laura Capel-Lofft; see NPG 1828a.
On the back, pencil profile, presumed by same artist.

1864
Portrait in unidentified medium by William Bell Scott; untraced. Ref. Dilke 1905, p.24.

Watercolour by ‘J.P’; untraced. Ref. Dilke 1905, p.24. Charles Dilke conjectured that this was executed by the Belgian orientalist artist Jean-François Portaels.

publ. 1872
Design by unidentified artist for Women’s Rights – A Meeting at the Hanover Square Rooms, profile to left, seated on platform speaking to Millicent Fawcett, in large figure group; untraced. Repr. as wood-engr. Graphic, 25 May 1872; detail repr. Askwith 1969, p.74.

?1878–81
Two watercolours by Victor-Florence Pollet (d.1882); untraced; cited as ‘2 Pollet miniatures of Emilia’ in inventory of pictures and objets d’art compiled by Charles Dilke, 1885, BL, London, Add. Ms.49423, f.16 and listed by C. Dilke in letter to Lionel Cust, 12 June 1905, NPG RP 1603. Pollet is recorded as meeting the sitter at the 1878 Paris Salon.

1882
Miniature by Charles Camino; see NPG 1828.

before 1885
Portrait by unidentified artist; untraced; listed as ‘a bad picture which was given to my wife to “go to the N.P.G.” after her… I may destroy it … or, as the donor is happily living, I may return it’ in letter from Charles Dilke to Lionel Cust, 12 June 1905, NPG RP 1603.

1887
Oil on canvas by Hubert von Herkomer; see NPG 5288.

1895
Oil on canvas, 838 x 609mm, by John da Costa, signed and dated, half-length, profile to right, wearing black hat, pale blue boa or fur and gloves; untraced. Exh. John da Costa 1867–1931, from the Collection of Elizabeth M. Richards, Leighton House, London, 1974 (1, ill.). Repr. Baraset House Fine Arts website, BH-FA-072.

1904
Watercolour miniature by unidentified artist, after photograph (see below, ‘Photographs, before 1861’); untraced.

Possible portraitsback to top

Soon after the sitter’s death, it was suggested that before her marriage she had sat to George Frederic Watts, whose widow searched his surviving drawings and sketches, using photographs supplied by Mrs Frederic Stephens. On 30 July 1905 Mary Watts wrote to Charles Dilke, saying, ‘I came across two charcoal drawings. They have some resemblance to the photographs but I am afraid to say that they are studies of Lady Dilke from [?] former years. The face is turned to less than profile.’ (Letter from M.S. Watts to C. Dilke, 30 July 1905, BL, London, Add. Ms.43918, f.118). These drawings are now unidentified and there are no likenesses of Emilia Dilke in the Watts Gallery collection.

Photographsback to top

before 1861
Photograph by unidentified photographer, oval format, half-length, turned slightly to left, right arm resting on chairback; repr. Dilke 1905, frontispiece; and Askwith 1969, facing p.86. Presumably the item listed as ‘Photograph head of Emilia when I first knew her in 1858’ in inventory of pictures and objets d’art compiled by Charles Dilke, 1885, BL Add. Ms.49422, f.17, and from which an untraced watercolour miniature was made for the sitter’s widower (see above, ‘By other artists, 1904’).

c.1861
Cut-down carte-de-visite by Monkhouse & Co., York, verso inscr. ‘This / photograph / of / 1862[sic] / makes her [look as] / old as / she / does in / 92’, whole-length, profile to right, seated, arms out and across to clasp hand of now-excised figure to right (presumed Mark Pattison), hair upswept, wearing full-skirted gown with fitted bodice, three-quarter sleeves, fabric with small diamond-shaped design, lace collar and cuffs, two strings of pearls at neck; BL, London, Add. Ms 49612b, item 4.

c.1862
Photograph by unidentified photographer, half-length, looking to right, wearing pale gown with wide-sleeves and dark lace shawl; coll. John Sparrow, 1978. Repr. Askwith 1969, facing p.87 (captioned ‘Mrs Pattison about 1862’).

c.1878
Photograph by unidentified photographer, oval format, half-length, near-profile to right, standing with arms on chairback; coll. John Sparrow, 1978. Repr. Gwynn & Tuckwell 1917, facing p.92 (where dated to ‘about 1878’); and Askwith 1969, facing p.86.

c.1880s
Photograph by unidentified photographer, taken at Dockett Eddy (the Dilkes’s country home) with Rhoda Broughton and another unidentified figure; ref. R.J. Harris, ‘Emilia Francis Strong: Portraits of a Lady’, Nineteenth-century Fiction, vol.8, 1953, p.90.

publ. 1894
Carbon print, 140 x 92mm, by W. & D. Downey, three-quarter-length, looking to right, standing with husband; publ. Downey & Downey 1890–94, ser. 5, 1894 (see NPG Ax27920 for print in volume); colls Getty Images, 2634030 (where dated to 1890); and NPG x8701. Repr. Askwith 1969, facing p.198.

1890s
Photograph by unidentified photographer for London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company, three-quarter-length, half-profile to left, wearing small hat tied with large ribbon beneath chin, sprigged gown with puff shoulders and fur-trimmed pelisse over left arm, standing with husband; BL, London, Add. Ms.49612b, item 73. Repr. Nicholls 1995, fig.12; detail repr. Askwith 1969, facing p.199 (where erroneously credited to Hulton Picture Library).

1904
Photograph by Thomson, Sept. 1904, half-length, looking to right, standing, wearing tiara, pearls and ostrich feather stole; copy from Emery Walker neg., NPG RN60105. Repr. Gwynn & Tuckwell 1917, vol.2, facing p.462 (where dated to 1903); and Nicholls 1995, fig.11 (where date given).

Dr Jan Marsh