Sir John Tenniel

Inscriptionback to top

Signed with initials in ink lower left: ‘Hy.F.’;
inscr. below: ‘Sir John Tenniel. The Illustrator of the Original “Alice”’;
and in pencil further below: ‘a Sketch when at the “Punch” Table’.

This portraitback to top

The composition is related to NPG 3612. The long-stemmed clay pipe (a ‘churchwarden’) was Tenniel’s usual attribute: ‘In my early days at the Table, by the way, we all took to churchwardens, chiefly, I think, out of regard for Tenniel […] He puffed his churchwarden continuously – one remembers the firm, nervous grip of his fingers on the stem and the vague half-sketched gestures that punctated his talk’. [1]

See NPG collections 3337–3535, 3554–3620


Carol Blackett-Ord

Footnotesback to top

1) Punch 1914, pp.14, 15.

Physical descriptionback to top

Three-quarter-length, seated to right, head to viewer, holding churchwarden pipe in left hand.

Provenanceback to top

The artist; his sons, from whom purchased (through Theodore Cluse), April 1947

Reproductionsback to top

Strand Magazine, January 1908, p.50 (see MEPL, London, 10060075).

View all known portraits for Harry Furniss

View all known portraits for Sir John Tenniel