Titles

Only one title has been suggested:

• 'Portrait of Sir Henry Cole' (1980, YMSM). 1

Description

Portrait of Sir Henry Cole, photograph, Pennell 1911

A full-length portrait of an elderly man in a dark suit and cloak. He has white hair and a beard. He stands in three-quarter view to right.

The sitter's son, A. S. Cole, described it in his diary on 26 February 1882, but transcriptions vary; one reads, 'full length, evening clothes, long dark overcloak thrown back, red ribbon of Bath', while another describes the cloak as a 'long dark brown cloak', and yet another as a 'long dark overcoat thrown back.' 2

Sidney Starr (1857-1925) described the cloak as blue rather than brown: 'a portrait of Sir Henry Cole ... a tall dark portrait of a man in a long cloak of dark blue, turned back over the right shoulder, a man with a ruddy face and a white stubby beard.' 3

The photograph of this portrait reproduced by the Pennells in 1911 is the sole visual record of the portrait. 4 The photograph gives the proportions for the canvas, which is in vertical format. Assuming it to have been life-size, these proportions would correspond to a canvas of approximately 75 x 40 (191 x 102mm).

Sitter

Henry Cole (1808-1882).

Sir Henry Cole, C.B., photograph, Victoria and Albert Museum E.207-2005

This was Whistler's second portrait of Sir Henry Cole (see Portrait of Sir Henry Cole [YMSM 180]). A letter from Whistler to Cole on 29 March 1882 suggests that Cole wished to reproduce the second portrait in his autobiography, but when the book was published, after Cole's death, the portrait was not reproduced. 5 .