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Study for Portrait of Emily Tennyson

Maker

(artist)
1817-1904

Title

Date of Production

1862

Medium

graphite and grey wash on wove paper

Dimensions

Height: 27.5 cm
Width: 20.6 cm

Accession Number

D.1952.RW.2986

Mode of Acquisition

Robert Clermont Witt, bequest, 1952

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Work in the public domain

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords

Label Text

In November 1862 Emily Tennyson recalled in her journal that she sat for this drawing ‘to surprise A’ – her husband, the Poet Laureate Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), who had on two previous occasions been painted by G.F. Watts. The small drawing is evidently only a working idea since the sitter’s face is not in full profile as in the finished painting, and her lace veil is barely visible. Yet, this sensitive portrait successfully conjures up a mood of poetic reverie. The final painting is now in the collection of the Tennyson Research Centre.

Provenance

given by the artist's wife, Mary Seton Watts (1849-1938), to Sir Robert Witt, London (1872-1952), n.d.; Witt Bequest 1952

Exhibition History

Life, Legend, Landscape - Victorian Drawings and Watercolours, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 17/02/2011-15/05/2011

Literature

Blunt, Anthony, Hand-list of the drawings in the Witt Collection, London, 1956
p. 55

Thwaite, Anne, Emily Tennyson: The Poet's Wife, London, 1996
p. 388

National Portrait Gallery, London, 2004, G.F. Watts Portraits: Fame & Beauty in Victorian Society
under no. 41
p. 126 ...More

Life, Legend, Landscape - Victorian Drawings and Watercolours, The Courtauld Gallery, 2011
cat. no. 10
p. 67 ...Less

Inscriptions

Inscription: Mrs. Tennyson

Collector's mark: collector's mark of Sir Robert Witt (L.2228b)

Inscription: George Frederick Watts R.A. / 1817-1904 / Portrait of Mrs Tennyson //

Inscription: gift of Mrs. Watts

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