Richard Chenevix Trench

This portraitback to top

This drawing was anonymously lithographed (example in NPG). In a letter of 22 February 1842, W. B. Donne wrote to thank J. W. Blakesley for sending him one of the lithographs (Johnson, p 70): 'Laurence has a masterly pencil and time will doubtless soften the asperity of his style which gives, at least to the two drawings I have seen, more of melancholy than I hope either Thompson or Trench exhibit in their daily countenances.' The drawings of Trench and Thompson (NPG 1743) were part of a series of drawings of the Cambridge 'Apostles' executed by Laurence at this time. Brookfield wrote to Laurence in 1849 (Miles): 'It wd., after all, be difficult to do better than you have done of Venables, Trench, Morris - many more - which are to my mind better things than I have seen from any other hand.' Fanny Kemble commented: 'It is a matter of regret to me that the two likenesses of the Archbishop of Dublin, in his lately published memoirs, should give so unfavourable an idea of his very fine and noble countenance. I have myself a head of him, by Samuel Lawrence [sic], which does far more justice to his refined and sweetly serious face - the very face of a poet.' Another similar drawing of Trench by Laurence, signed and dated 1841, is in the collection of Lt Commander Chenevix-Trench, the great-grandson of the sitter.

Referenceback to top

Johnson 1905
C. B. Johnson, William Bodham Donne and his Friends (1905), p 70.

Kemble 1890
Fanny Kemble, Further Records (1890), I, 274.

Miles
F. Miles, 'Samuel Laurence' (typescript copy, NPG library).

Pym 1981
H. N. Pym, A Tour Round My Bookshelves (1891), p 58.

Provenanceback to top

Fanny Kemble; H. N. Pym; Pym Sale, Christie's, 22 November 1912 (lot 9), bought E. E. Leggatt, and presented by him, 1912.

Exhibitionsback to top

VE, 1892 (403).

Reproductionsback to top

F. M. Brookfield, The Cambridge 'Apostles' (1906), facing p 332.


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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