Mary Elizabeth Braddon
2 of 5 portraits by William Powell Frith
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
by William Powell Frith
oil on canvas, exhibited 1865
36 in. x 28 1/4 in. (914 mm x 718 mm)
Given by the sitter's grandson, Henry Maxwell, 1966
Primary Collection
NPG 4478
Sitterback to top
- Mary Elizabeth Braddon (Mary Elizabeth Maxwell) (1837-1915), Novelist. Sitter in 3 portraits.
Artistback to top
- William Powell Frith (1819-1909), Painter. Artist or producer associated with 5 portraits, Sitter in 25 portraits.
This portraitback to top
In In this portrait by William Powell Frith, Braddon stands in an interior with a desk piled up with books, signalling both her passion and profession.
Linked publicationsback to top
- Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 422
Events of 1865back to top
Current affairs
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson is the first female to be awarded a doctor's licence. She is also involved in collecting signatures for the Manchester Suffrage Committee, the first suffrage organisation, formed this year. John Stuart Mill was also elected to parliament this year on the platform of women's suffrage.Palmerston dies in October, and is replaced as leader of the Liberal government by his Foreign Secretary, Lord Russell.
Art and science
Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland is published, inspired by Carroll's relationship (as Oxford don Charles Dodgson) with his friend Henry George Liddell's daughter Alice.Matthew Arnold publishes the first series of Essays in Criticism, a defining text in the development of English literature as an academic discipline.
International
In the American civil war, Robert E. Lee surrenders the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant, leading to the surrender of the Confederacy's remaining field armies. A few days later, US President Abraham Lincoln is shot dead by Confederate sympathiser John Wilkes Booth. Later this year slavery is officially abolished after years of fierce campaigning. In response, the first branch of the Ku Klux Klan is founded on Christmas Eve.Comments back to top
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