“Charlotte Brontë” by George Richmond, RA (1809-1896)

Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855)

George Richmond, RA (1809-1896)

1850

Chalk

23 5/8 in. x 18 3/4 in. (600 mm x 476 mm)

National Portrait Gallery, London

Bequeathed by the sitter's husband, Rev A. B. Nicholls, 1906

Jane Sellars writes that this portrait, which was commissioned by Charlotte Brontē's publisher George Smith as a present for her father, "established a kind of pictorial symbol for the the face of Charlotte Brontë that persists to this day" (123). [Commentary continues below.]

Formatting and text by Jacqueline Banerjee. [Mouse over the text for links, and click on the picture to enlarge it.]

Richmond's triumph here was not easily achieved. His sitter had been very reluctant to go along with the project, and was upset when he asked to take off the hairpiece that she was then wearing. She was again upset when allowed to see the finished portrait, because it reminded her of her sister Anne.

However, Richmond was adept at bringing out the best in his sitters, and has done so here, supplying "the fullness which she lacked in reality and which the hairpiece had so signally failed to redress," as well as capturing "the beauty of her large eyes, her one redeeming feature," and at the same time playing down her large nose and mouth. "With subtle shadowing, too, and by turning her face slightly to one side, he reduced the squareness of her lower jaw" (Barker 645). The soft touch and highlights of the chalk are also flattering, and seemed very appropriate for female sitters, in particular. This was clearly a case of digital manipulation, Victorian-style, but the result is indeed pleasing.

Related Material

Charlotte Brontë: A Brief Biography

Sources

Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1994 (see pp. 644-45).

Sellars, Jane. "Portraits of the Brontës." The Brontës in Context. Ed. Marianne Thormählen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. 123-33.

Created 1 March 2016