Lost Charles Dickens portrait found mouldering in SA
The 14cm-high watercolour, which has been missing for 150 years, has been restored and will go on display in London
London — 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 SA. The miniature watercolour and gouache portrait by Margaret Gillies, valued at £220,000, 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. The portrait was last on public display in 1844 at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, only to disappear some time after, with Gillies writing in a letter in the 1860s that she was unsure of its whereabouts. After a fruitless search, she reported it unaccounted for in 1886. The 14cm-high oval portrait was found late last year in KwaZulu-Natal by an unknown buyer and has since been restored...
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