Lot 199: Walter Saunders Barnard (British, 1851-1930) Charles Dickens (1812-1870), wearing black coat, white chemise, black stock and tie

Charles Dickens (1812-1870), wearing black coat, white chemise, black stock and tie.
Signed on the reverse and dated Charles Dickens/ from life on ivory/ Walter Barnard/ 1868, gilt-metal frame.
Oval, 35mm (1 3/8in) high
Provenance: Liberal Association's Sale, Bath, 1930 (to John Clark of Street)
Christie's, 21 November 2000, lot 268

The present lot is sold together with two newspaper cuttings and a letter dating to 1930 giving details of the inquest into the death of Barnard who was knocked down by a tramcar in Islington and of his attachment to another unsigned miniature he had painted of Dickens.

Dickens was sent to school at the age of nine but when his father was imprisoned for bad debt Charles was sent to work in Warren's blacking factory and endured appalling conditions as well as loneliness and despair. After three years he was returned to school, but the experience was never forgotten and became fictionalised in two of his better-known novels 'David Copperfield' and 'Great Expectations'.

Like many others, he began his literary career as a journalist, becoming in 1833 parliamentary journalist for The Morning Chronicle. In April 1836, he married Catherine Hogarth and the same month published the highly successful 'Pickwick Papers'. He was estranged from his wife in 1858 after the birth of their ten children, but maintained relations with his mistress, the actress Ellen Ternan.