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If one were to Google the Brontë sisters, one of the first images to surface would be this portrait of the three novelist sisters—an oil on canvas painted by their brother, Patrick Branwell Brontë in 1834—entitled “The Brontë Sisters.” From left to right in the painting are Anne Brontë, known widely for The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Emily Brontë, who wrote Wuthering Heights (1847), and Charlotte Brontë, famous for Jane Eyre (1847), amongst other works. This painting is the only surviving group portrait of the sisters. It was considered long lost until Mrs. M. A. Nicholls, the second wife of Charlotte’s widower, Reverend A.B. Nicholls, found it folded up on top of a wardrobe at Hill House, Banagher in Ireland in 1914. There were two portraits discovered that day: one of all three sisters as shown here, and a single portrait of Emily, which was apparently cut from a larger group portrait that had once included the other sisters and Branwell, depicted holding a gun. In a letter to the Gallery, Mrs. Nicholls explained that her husband was the one who ‘cut it out of a painting done by Branwell’ because he thought it was good and the others were bad. The discovery of these paintings made for a fascinating story that garnered much public interest. In fact, the headline of the Daily Graphic magazine’s March 6th, 1914 issue read “The Romantic Discovery of Long Lost Brontë Portraits” and was accompanied by “an illustration of visitors inspecting two damaged portraits of the Brontë sisters, hung for the first time at the National Portrait Gallery.” 

Interestingly enough, author Elizabeth Gaskell saw the painting in 1853 and described it as “not much better than sign painting as to the manipulation but the likenesses were, I should think, admirable.” Upon close inspection of the portrait, a male figure in the centre of the group can now be discerned, having been previously concealed by a painted pillar. According to the National Portrait Gallery, this is “almost certainly a self-portrait of the artist, their brother Branwell Brontë, later painted out.” Of course, the painting suffered damages after being folded up and neglected for many years, which is why it is marked by several crease lines. Despite the quality of the portraits being highly disputed, the Gallery concluded that “the damaged condition of the portraits was expressive in itself and merited preservation.” The first day of the viewing was so well-attended that the Yorkshire Observer claimed that the Gallery underwent “a minor siege.” This painting of the Brontë sisters is still one of the most popular works in the National Portrait Gallery’s collections.

Source: https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw00797/The-Bront-Sisters-Anne-Bront-Emily-Bront-Charlotte-Bront