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HEINZ ARCHIVE AND LIBRARY MANUSCRIPTS COLLECTION
Introduction Purpose Scope Access Collection holdings Images and transcriptions of archival documents from the Heinz Archive and Library George Frederic Watts correspondence
	Introduction
Sir George Scharf, by W.E. Kilburn, 1847	The Heinz Archive and Library holds a small but significant collection of manuscripts that relate specifically to British portraiture and, in particular, to artists and portraits represented in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery. The collection owes its origins to the Gallery's first Director, Sir George Scharf, who gathered around him the research materials necessary for building a national collection of portraits. Historically important artists' manuscripts have been acquired or copied for the library and integrated with other reference materials, including visual resources, by means of a vast slip index of sitters. The collection contains both original manuscript and hand-written, typed and photographic copies of artists' diaries, account books, studio ledgers and sitter books from the 17th century to the present. Amongst contemporary holdings are 'commission diaries', in various formats, that have been kept by artists commissioned to produce portraits for the Gallery.
MS 8a	As well as individual manuscripts, the collection includes holdings of artists' papers and correspondence, and albums of autograph letters assembled by collectors and antiquaries. Over the years, the Archive and Library has also acquired approximately 600 miscellaneous holograph letters, mainly written by artists or their sitters, which are housed together in a single alphabetical sequence by name of correspondent. The very largest groups within the collection include several private archives, comprising mainly the research papers of important scholars in the field of portraiture. These often include photographs and other reproductions of portraits, and complement and, to an extent, overlap with the extensive visual resources and files of staff research notes and correspondence that are kept in the Public Study Room.
	Purpose
MS 31	The manuscript collection provides primary source material and documentary evidence for the study of British portraiture and, as such, it is both a valuable resource for scholars working in this field and a discrete but significant part of the nation's archival heritage. The collection plays an important role in helping to contribute to a greater understanding and appreciation of the Gallery's primary collection of portraits and of British portraiture generally. Manuscripts that relate to portraits represented in the Gallery's collections are of particular interest because they offer primary documentary evidence and context for the identity, authenticity, interpretation and understanding of those portraits. Artists' diaries, account books, studio ledgers, sitter books and correspondence can provide insights into the studio practice of painters and the social, commercial and historical context within which they were working. They also provide historical information about what portraits were commissioned and how they were created.
Sir Henry Charles Englefield, 7th Bt, by Thomas Phillips, 1815	Another very important aspect of such a collection is the information it can provide for the existence of portraits. Records of sittings with an artist, receipts for payment, studio inventories and the papers of executors of artists' and collectors' estates, document the existence and, occasionally, aid the identification of portraits. In some instances they may represent the only surviving source of information for the existence of portraits that have disappeared, lost their identity, or been destroyed. Such evidence is valuable to Gallery staff and has occasionally been used to help in the purchase of portraits for the main collection. For example, the cabinet portrait of the natural philosopher and antiquarian Sir Henry Englefield (1752-1822) appeared at auction in 1969 as 'Portrait of a gentleman'. A curator noticed the monograph of Thomas Phillips dated 1815 and consulted the library copy of the artist's sitters book to identify portraits painted by Phillips in that year. By checking engraved reproductions of portraits held in the Archive and Library, it was possible to find an exact match in a mezzotint engraved by Charles Turner. The portrait was thus positively identified and purchased for the Gallery (NPG 4659).
MS 50	The Archive and Library holds several private archives of research papers that relate to artists who are of special interest to the Gallery. These papers relate to published theses, biographies, articles or catalogues raisonné. However, they also contain potentially useful material that will not have found its way into published form. They may provide evidence for the research method and help to establish links to other relevant sources of information. Research notes and correspondence relating to portraits, as generated by staff in connection with Gallery business, is generally retained and filed by sitter, artist or collection in a series of note files in the Public Study Room. These files also contain material donated by external researchers and therefore overlap to an extent, in terms of content and purpose, with the research papers that form part of the manuscript collection.
	Scope
Charles Beale the Elder, by Mary Beale, c.1663	The collection contains a number of important historical manuscripts, the earliest of which is the 1681 diary and notebook of Charles Beale, husband of the 17th century portrait painter Mary Beale. In his diary Beale records the daily operations of his wife's painting studio, including details of their accounts and the names of her sitters. Another very early group of papers is that of the Tonson family. Jacob Tonson (1655-1736) was a publisher and also secretary of the Kit Cat Club, of which the collection of members' portraits now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery (NPG 3193-3235). The Tonson family papers span the years from the late 17th century to the early 19th century, although the majority are 18th century. They comprise mainly legal documents, such as deeds, leases, wills, executor records, and accounts relating to property owned by the family, but also include a box of material concerning the Kit Cat Club portraits.
MS 111	Diaries, account books, studio ledgers and sitter books are an important source of information for the study of portraiture and are therefore well represented in the Archive and Library. One of the earliest to be acquired for the Gallery by Sir George Scharf was an account book, covering the years 1810-1828, of Dublin-based miniature painter John Comerford. Other examples include the account books George Romney (purchased in 1981 with the aid of the Friends of the National Libraries) and Joseph Wright of Derby (purchased in 1957). The Romney ledger, which covers the years 1786-1796, is written in the hands of several studio assistants, two of whom are identifiable as Joseph Barker and R. Williams. It provides an 'account of all pictures sent out & coming in', including details of portraits sent out of the studio for framing and engraving. By contrast, Wright's account book, for the years 1760-1797, appears to be more haphazard. It lists portraits painted during the artist's tours of Midland towns, with prices paid, but it has also been used for sketching and for making miscellaneous notes.
James Northcote, self-portrait, 1784	Amongst the collection are manuscript volumes that belonged to portrait painters Robert Home, who travelled to India in 1790 and established a successful practice in Madras, Calcutta and Lucknow; James Northcote, who travelled to Italy before eventually settling in London in 1781; and Glasgow-born John Partridge, who established himself in London and received much patronage from Scottish aristocrats. In the late 19th century a number of sitter books or sitter lists were borrowed and transcribed. In 1899, for example, the Assistant Keeper, James Milner copied the notebook in which Thomas Phillips's listed the portraits he painted between 1791 and 1843 and transcribed a list of portraits, lent by the artist's son, that were painted between 1812 and 1864 by Margaret Sarah Carpenter. In 1906, he copied an index catalogue, with a table of prices, of works by the Victorian painter George Richmond. The original index catalogue, probably compiled by a descendent of the artist, was purchased for the Archive and Library in 2001 with Richmond's account book for the years 1853-1893.
Dorothy Wilding, self-portrait, c.1930 © Tom Hustler	Photographers are represented by a number of studio ledgers and other papers. The collection includes an album of letters to Charles and John Watkins, successful photographers based in London during the second half of the 19th century. The fashionable photographer Dorothy Wilding, who was active in London and New York between 1915 and 1958, is represented by a studio ledger and 3 day-books. An early sitter book relating to the National Photographic Record, which ran from 1917-1970 and which is now housed at the Gallery, was donated by Godfrey Argent in 1999. Argent also donated 2 sitter books of the photographer Howard Coster, which cover the years 1926-1959. These have joined 3 of Coster's autograph albums, which were acquired for the collection in the 1960s.
Letter from G.F. Watts to Sir Andrew Clark, 23 June 1892	Amongst the collections of artists' papers and correspondence are important holdings relating to George Frederic Watts and Frank Owen Salisbury. The Gallery holds the bulk of the correspondence of the Victorian painter and sculptor George Frederic Watts. This collection is contained in 14 volumes and 4 boxes and was assembled after the artist's death by his widow, Mary Seton Watts, in preparation for a biography of her late husband. It contains autograph letters by Watts and many of his sitters, including lengthy exchanges of correspondence between the artist and his chief patron, Charles Hilditch Rickards, and Mary Gertrude Mead, who organised an exhibition of his work in New York in 1884-1885. The correspondence and papers of the 20th century society painter Frank Owen Salisbury were purchased by the Gallery in 1997 and include, amongst other material, 2 volumes of letters from his sitters and a volume of correspondence relating to his coronation pictures of 1937.
MS 162	Several interesting manuscript items have been acquired because they relate to Thomas Lawrence, who, as Kenneth Garlick has noted, did not keep proper accounts or a record of his sitters. These documents are all the more significant for this fact and include: a valuation of the artist's effects, which was compiled after his death in 1830; 35 letters and 2 extracts of letters written by Lawrence's sitters to his executor Archibald J. Keightley; and photographic copies of the series of important financial executor records that Keightley kept (now held by the Victoria and Albert Museum). A small group of letters and notes relating to Sir George Hayter's painting 'The House of Lords, 1820, the trial of Queen Caroline' (NPG 999) were purchased with preparatory sketches for the painting in 1912. More recently, in 1993, the Gallery purchased, with Jerry Barrett's painting 'The first visit of Queen Victoria to her wounded soldiers' (NPG 6203), a small volume containing letters between the artist and his engraver Thomas Oldham Barlow and written accounts of the royal visit by 2 of the soldiers present, Private McCabe and Sergeant Leny.
Sir Lionel Henry Cust, by unknown photographer, 1905	The research papers represent some of the largest groups in the collection. The most significant of these are the papers of Lionel Cust, Richard Jeffree and Dr Kenneth Garlick. Lionel Cust, who was appointed Director of the National Portrait Gallery in 1895, published many catalogues and articles during his career - the notes and drafts for which either remained at the Gallery after his retirement in 1909 or were acquired after his death in 1929. Amongst these papers are 29 notebooks, interleaved with correspondence and other material, that relate to 764 articles he contributed to the Dictionary of National Biography between c. 1886 and 1900. Richard Jeffree, who died in 1991, bequeathed to the Gallery his entire archive of notes, drafts, lectures, photographs, slides, card indexes and correspondence. His main research interest was the 17th century portrait painter Mary Beale, but amongst his papers are notes relating to many other artists, including those he wrote about for the MacMillan Dictionary of Art. Dr Kenneth Garlick, retired Keeper of Western Art at the Ashmolean Museum, gave to the Gallery in 2002 the vast archive of correspondence, notes and photographs that he amassed during 50 years of researching and cataloguing the works of Sir Thomas Lawrence.
Neil Gordon & Glenys Elizabeth Kinnock, by Andrew Tift, 2001	Whilst the majority of the collection comprises historical documents or substantial private research archives, the Archive and Library also holds contemporary records of portrait artists whose work is represented in the Gallery's main collection. In order to document the process of making portraits and to record something of the experience of the sittings, artists who receive commissions from the Gallery are encouraged to keep a diary, in a format of their choice, which is acquired with the finished work. Examples, to date, include notes, papers, photographs and slides relating to Stephen Farthing's group portrait 'Historians of Past and Present' (NPG 6518) and Andrew Tift's diary, notes, preparatory drawings, photographs and videos relating to his portrait of politicians Neil and Glenys Kinnock (NPG 6583).
	Access
	The manuscript collection is housed in our Orange Street building and can be accessed by appointment in the Heinz Archive and Library. We have microfilm, photographic copies or photocopies of a number of the artists' diaries, account books and sitter books in the collection and these are normally issued in place of the manuscripts, unless there is a specific need to consult the originals.
MS 55	Both the bound volumes of manuscripts and collections of papers have been catalogued on to the Library database, which can be consulted online and in the card catalogue in the Public Study Room. However, most of these collections have only been catalogued at collection level. Detailed catalogues have yet to be produced. In the meantime, the contents of several of the larger collections (e.g. Richard Jeffree's research papers, Frank Owen Salisbury's correspondence, the papers of the Tonson family, and George Frederic Watts's correspondence) have been hand-listed and a number of other albums have been indexed. Copies of hand-lists and indexes are kept with the collections and also in the relevant note files in the Public Study Room. Additionally, the names of sitters recorded in most of the artists' diaries, account books, studio ledgers and sitters books have been indexed on slips and filed in the slip index in the Public Study Room. The Collections holdings link above gives more information about the main collections of manuscripts held by the Heinz Archive and Library. The George Frederic Watts correspondence link above provides access to the hand-list for this collection.
	The collection of miscellaneous autograph letters is housed together in one sequence that is arranged alphabetically by correspondent. It can be consulted in the Public Study Room and details can be found in the separate card catalogue of autograph letters adjacent to the Library catalogue.
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