Portrait of Charles Darwin.

Watercolour 30cm by 23cm, framed and mounted. Inserted in the mount a separate paper slip with the pencil inscription in a contemporary hand "Charles Robert Darwin 1809-1882. Painted by John Collier".

A contemporary Darwin portrait. This watercolour is a finished study based on the two major portraits of Charles Darwin (1809-1882) by Collier that now hang in the Linnean Society and the National Portrait Gallery.

ARTIST: John Maler Collier (1850-1934) was one of the most prominent portrait painters of his generation. Both his marriages were to daughters of Thomas Henry Huxley. He first married Marian (Mady) Huxley who died in 1887 and in 1889 he married Mady's younger sister Ethel Huxley. The National Portrait Gallery holds 21 portraits by Collier including one of his father-in-law.

There are two substantial portraits by Collier in oil of Charles Darwin. He painted a portrait for the Linnean Society in 1881 and then produced a later copy in 1883 which was donated to the National Portrait Gallery by Darwin's son, William Erasmus, in 1886.

A quote from the National Portrait Gallery website: "This portrait of Charles Darwin, the great scientist and author of On the Origin of Species, is a copy by the artist of a portrait undertaken by John Collier for the Linnaean Society. Collier was himself the son-in-law of another prominent late Victorian scientist, Thomas Henry Huxley. The portrait was presented to the Gallery by Darwin's eldest son, William Erasmus Darwin, who wrote to Lionel Cust in 1896: 'The picture is a replica of the one in the rooms in the Linnaean Society and was made by Collier after the original. I took some trouble about it and as a likeness it is an improvement on the original.' It shows Darwin as an old man in the year before his death. According to Darwin's third son, Francis, 'The portrait represents him standing facing the observer in the loose cloak so familiar to those who knew him and with his slouch hat in his hand. Many of those who knew his face most intimately, think that Mr Collier's picture is the best of the portraits and in this judgment the sitter himself was inclined to agree".