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William Makepeace Thackeray

3 of 42 portraits of William Makepeace Thackeray

William Makepeace Thackeray, by Frank Stone, circa 1839 -NPG 4210 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Early Victorian Portraits Catalogue

William Makepeace Thackeray

by Frank Stone
circa 1839
24 in. x 20 in. (610 mm x 508 mm)
NPG 4210

This portraitback to top

Thackeray's daughter, Lady Ritchie, remembered visiting Stone's studio in Tavistock Square with her father, when the two men talked about their early days. Stone brought out the unfinished NPG portrait, which he had painted several years earlier over a sketch of a lady with a guitar (her red dress is still visible), and gave it to Thackeray: 'a cheerful, florid picture of my father, as I for one had never seen him, with thick black hair and a young ruddy face' (Lady Ritchie, p 92). Kitton and Wilson both date the portrait to 1836, but if Mrs Thackeray's letter of 3 July 1839 to Mrs Carmichael refers to the NPG picture, then it must have been painted in 1839: 'Stone is doing a portrait of W. they say it is excellent so I hope he intends to do whats handsome by me and give it to me' (Thackeray Papers, I, 388). As Stone and Thackeray were friendly for several years, it is possible that Stone painted more than one portrait, and that Mrs Thackeray's letter refers to another. In spite of Lady Ritchie's favourable comments quoted above, Kitton states that she did not consider the NPG portrait a satisfactory likeness. Thackeray first met Stone at Maclise's studio, and often used to visit his 'irregular ménage [Stone openly lived with his mistress, by whom he had several children, and only married her late in life] and go walking with him in Kensington Gardens' (Uses of Adversity, p 169). Stone's private life provided Thackeray with the plot for his 'A Shabby Genteel Story', first published in Fraser's Magazine (May-October 1840).

Referenceback to top

Kitton 1891
F. G. Kitton, 'The Portraits of Thackeray', Magazine of Art (1891), p 290.

Ray 1945-6
Possibly the portrait mentioned in a letter from Mrs Thackeray of 3 July 1839 in G. N. Ray, The Letters and Private Papers of W. M. Thackeray (1945-6), I, 388.

Ritchie 1894
A. T. (Lady) Ritchie, Chapters from Some Memoirs (1894), pp 91-2.

Physical descriptionback to top

Unfinished. Florid complexion, dark brown hair, brown eyes. Dressed in a white collar and dark stock. Patches of vivid green and red, lower left. Background dark brown.

Provenanceback to top

The artist; given by him to Thackeray; by descent to the latter's granddaughter, Mrs Richard Thackeray Fuller, and bequeathed by her, 1961.

Exhibitionsback to top

VE, 1892 (262); Thackeray Centenary Exhibition, Prince's Gallery, Piccadilly, May 1911; Thackeray Exhibition, Old Charterhouse, London, 1911 (3); Charles Dickens, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1970 (P5).

Reproductionsback to top

General J. G. Wilson, Thackeray in the United States (1904), I, facing 81; G. N. Ray, Thackeray: the Uses of Adversity (1955), frontispiece.


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.

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