22 November 2018 - Lost Portrait of Young Dickens Discovered in South Africa
Lost portrait of Charles Dickens found in South Africa
Tara John (CNN, 21/11/2018)
Sometime in the late 19th century a palm-sized portrait of Charles Dickens was reported unaccounted for by its artist, Margaret Gillies. Attempts to locate the work failed and it was consigned to history.
But earlier this year the lost painting, estimated to be worth up to a quarter of a million dollars, was found languishing in a box of bric-a-brac at a house clearance sale in the South African city of Pietermaritzburg.
Knowing they had found something special, the buyers sent the piece to London to be authenticated.
Lost Charles Dickens portrait found in South Africa after 174 years
Anita Singh (The Telegraph, 21/11/2018)
Covered in mould and lying unloved in a box of trinkets, the portrait had seen better days.
But a buyer who picked up the box as a job lot for £27 at a South African antiques sale had stumbled upon something extraordinary. The young man in the picture is a 31-year-old Charles Dickens, and the ivory miniature is a portrait that had been lost to historians since the middle of the 19th century.
Now restored and authenticated, the work is back in Britain and the Charles Dickens Museum is launching a £180,000 campaign to buy it.
Lost portrait of Charles Dickens turns up at auction in South Africa
Mark Brown (The Guardian, 21/11/2018)
A portrait of a young and handsome Charles Dickens that was lost for 174 years has been discovered in a tray of trinkets at an auction in South Africa.
The discovery is one of the most remarkable finds of recent memory. The art dealer Philip Mould, who was instrumental in its identification, said: “I’ve spent a career specialising in British art and this ranks among the most exciting things we have ever discovered. It is the lost portrait.”
It was found last year in a general sale in Pietermaritzburg in the South African province of Kwazulu-Natal. A man paid the equivalent of £27 for a cardboard tray containing a metal lobster, an old recorder, a brass plate and a small painting which was so covered with mould that the face could barely be made out.
Great Expectations as Dickens portrait goes on show in London
(Reuters, 21/11/2018)
A youthful portrait of British writer Charles Dickens that went missing for 150 years will go on display in London this week after being found covered in mould next to a metal lobster at a market in South Africa.
The miniature watercolour and gouache portrait by Margaret Gillies, valued at 220,000 pounds ($280,000), was painted in 1843 as the young Dickens, in his early 30s, was writing “A Christmas Carol”.
The painting shows the Victorian writer clean shaven, with long, wavy hair, looking over his left shoulder, a contrast to the more common image of an ageing Dickens, with long bushy beard and messy, balding hair.