George Eliot

John Sloan (1871-1951), an American artist, etched this portrait of George Eliot. According to Peter Morse, it was likely free-handed from a small wood-cutting in an 1888 edition of Scenes from Adam Bede (Morse 1969, 23-25). Sloan was better known for his etched illustrations of scenes and his landscape paintings ("John Sloan" 2020), making this portrait a rare find.

After George Eliot's death, George Richmond (1809-1896) composed this graphite portrait of her from memory. Richmond was an English painter and portraitist ("George Richmond" 2020).

American artist Thomas Johnson (1843-1904) engraved this portrait for Harper's New Monthly Magazine ("George Eliot" 1881, 62: 913). At one point, Johnson supervised the work of Henry Davidson, whose work is also included in this portrait gallery (Whittle 1919, 32). Johnson also engraved portraits of President Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman, in addition to Eliot ("Walt Whitman 2020," "Abraham Lincoln" 2020).

American artist Henry Davidson (1858-1924), likely working from a reproduction of François D'Albert Durade's 1881 painting, produced this half-tone plate engraving on wood for The Century Magazine (Fields 1899, 58: 455). At one point, he worked for Harper's New Monthly Magazine under the supervision of Thomas Johnson, whose 1881 engraving of George Eliot is also included in this gallery (Whittle 1919, 31-32; Harper's 1881, 62: 913). In addition to Eliot, other noteworthy subjects of Davidson's engravings…

George du Maurier (1834-1896), a Franco-British writer and cartoonist celebrated for his work in Punch and his Gothic novel Trilby, sketched this portrait, either during a visit to the Priory or from memory later (Laski 1973, 98).

British painter Lowes Cato Dickinson (1819-1908) created this ink drawing at a concert, likely without the sitter's knowledge. According to Marghanita Laski, Dickinson is one of the people likely to have travelled to the weekly popular concerts that George Eliot was known to attend "to see her ... or sometimes to snatch a sketch" (Laski 1973, 107).

The 1881 albumen print was taken from the 1858 photograph by John Mayall (1810-1901) of the London Stereoscopic Company (Eliot 1906, frontispiece). Both George Eliot and George Henry Lewes were photographed by Mayall in 1858, but they do not seem to have been photographed together at that time (Laski 1973, 76).

Princess Louise (1848-1939), Duchess of Argyll, sketched this portrait of George Eliot on a programme while attending a concert (Laski 1973, 107).

This silhouette was created sometime between 1838 and 1848, when George Eliot would have been between 16 and 26 years old. An 1881 article in The Century suggests that she was 16 years old when the silhouette was cut, which would validate the 1838 date (Holland 1881, 48).

British portrait painter Samuel Laurence (1812-1884) created the portrait study, displayed first, and the two chalk drawings, displayed second and third (Laski 1973, 88).

English painter Laura Theresa Alma-Tadema (1852-1909) sketched these two portraits of George Eliot, likely without the sitter's knowledge (Laski 1973, 96).

American artist Stephen Alonzo Schoff (1818-1904) based this drawing on a photograph of George Eliot.

After George Eliot's death, French artist Paul Adolphe Rajon (1843-1888) etched this portrait of her for reproduction, basing it on the 1865 chalk drawing by Sir Frederic William Burton. This was one of the few images of Eliot that George Walter Cross approved for public dissemination, and it was featured in the first volume of Cross's publication George Eliot's Life, as Related in her Letters and Journals (Cross 1885, 1: frontispiece). Rajon's oeuvre also includes etchings of portraits of John Stuart Mill, Charles Darwin…

Irish painter Sir Frederic William Burton (1816-1900) sketched these portraits between 29 June and 22 July 1864, and he completed the chalk drawing in 1865. George Eliot sat for Burton in Kensington. The portrait was authorized to be exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts and to be etched for reproduction by Paul Rajon (Holland 1881, 48). 

Danish photographer Sophus Williams (1835-1900) took this photograph of George Eliot in Germany, sometime between 1854 and 1855. Eliot and George Henry Lewes (1817-1878) were travelling in Germany, ostensibly to conduct research for Lewes’s biography of Goethe. After returning to England, the couple lived together in what both called a marriage (GEL 1885, 2: 110).

George J. Stodart (1784-1884) based this steel engraving on the 1881 painting by François D'Albert Durade (Holland 1881, 47). The portrait was one of the few that George Walter Cross officially approved for reproduction after George Eliot's death, and Cross featured it in his publication of George Eliot's Life, as Related in her Letters and Journals (Cross 1885, 2: frontispiece). Stodart also engraved portraits of other prominent authors, including an 1853 representation of Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley, which he based on a…

Swiss painter François D'Albert Durade (1804-1886) composed the sketch, displayed first in this gallery exhibit, as a study for an 1850 oil painting. George Eliot resided in the home of François and Julie D'Albert Durade during her first trip to Switzerland, and she became close with the artist at that time (Holland 1881, 48). The oil painting that followed is frequently misdated as 1849, but Eliot mentions sitting for it in a letter dated 15 February 1850 (GEL 1954, 1: 257, 330). Following Eliot's death in 1880, Durade made a replica of this painting circa 1881. The…

Sara Hennell (1812-1899), like her sister Caroline Hennell Bray, was not a professional artist, but rather an English writer and close friend of George Eliot. Both Sara and Caroline sketched portraits of Eliot (Laski 1973, 31).

In 2016, this chalk pastel was discovered by London picture dealer Andrew Sim. Sim recognized the image as a George Eliot portrait and has convincingly attributed it to George Barker Jr. (1818-1883). Barker was likely the unnamed "young artist" and "picture restorer" who proposed to Eliot in 1845 (Simon 2009; GEL 1954, 1: 183-84).