Lot 473: PALMERSTON, HENRY JOHN TEMPLE, Viscount (1784-1865, statesman)

PORTRAIT BY [HERBERT WATKINS (b. 1828)], vintage photograph, albumen print, half-length cut to a oval, turned to the right, faintly lettered 'Herbert Frys National Gallery of Photographic Portraits', facsimile signature below, framed and glazed, size of photograph 8 x 6 inches (20 x 16.5 cm), size of image 16¾ x 8½ inches (28 x 22 cm), overall size 17 x 14 inches (43 x 36 cm), 1857-1858

Palmerston's photograph was issued in a separate fascicule as No. 1 in Herbert Fry's (1830-1885) series 'National Gallery of Photographic Portraits'. Reviewed in Notes and Queries, 2nd series, no. 116, 20 March 1858, the photograph of Palmerston was thus described: 'The Head of Palmerston is capital, true as truth, and like as life. Mr Punch must change his conventional Portrait of the Premier, now that the public have the man, as he lives...' The photographer was George Herbert Watkins.

The National Portrait Gallery purchased an example of this photograph in 1985.