Jane Baillie Carlyle (née Welsh)
3 of 12 portraits of Jane Baillie Carlyle (née Welsh)
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© National Portrait Gallery, London
Early Victorian Portraits Catalogue
Jane Baillie Carlyle (née Welsh)
by Samuel Laurence
circa 1852
7 7/8 in. x 6 in. (200 mm x 152 mm)
NPG 1175
This portraitback to top
The portrait is mounted as a miniature (2 x 1 ½ inches (5.1 x 3.9 cm)). The mount shows only the head, which is based on a crayon drawing of Mrs Carlyle by Laurence of 1849 at Carlyle's House, London, reproduced Jane Welsh Carlyle's Letters and Memorials, edited C. Brown (1903), frontispiece. A replica of this drawing is in the Berg Collection, New York Public Library. According to the donor (memorandum of c.1898, NPG archives), the NPG portrait was painted just before the outbreak of the Crimean War. Another oil portrait of Mrs Carlyle, dated 1849, and attributed to Laurence but almost certainly not by him, is also at Carlyle's House, reproduced New Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle, edited A. Carlyle (1903), I, facing 258. John Sterling was an old friend of Carlyle.
Physical descriptionback to top
Sallow complexion, brown eyes and hair, wearing a brown dress with a white collar. Standing in a brownish rocky landscape, against a greenish-grey sky with white clouds. The painting has suffered from bituminous cracking, particularly in the costume, and the lower part of the landscape on the left.
Provenanceback to top
John Sterling; by descent to Major-General Sterling, and presented by him, 1898.
This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: Richard Ormond, Early Victorian Portraits, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1973, and is as published then. For the most up-to-date details on individual Collection works, we recommend reading the information provided in the Search the Collection results on this website in parallel with this text.
View all known portraits for Jane Baillie Carlyle (née Welsh)