Ɛpsilon

From E. A. Darwin   16 January [1877]1

Jan 16 [1877]

Dear Charles

Laurence having painted the Prince of Wales now wants to paint another great man.2 He proposes to take a photograph & make a drawing from it & wanted to know which was most approved of & I offered to lend him my Elliot & Fry3   He thought I had the large life size (I forget who that is by the name I mean).4 What he also wanted after having made the drawing was to have a ten minute interview & he said he should not require more than that to mix his tints.

Will you do so when you come to London or would you prefer his coming to Down. He’ll require notice to make his drawing ready.

E. D.

1
The year is established by a contemporary annotation in pencil, probably made by Francis Darwin.
2
The portrait of Albert Edward (later Edward VII) by Samuel Laurence was recorded as missing in the Portrait Index of the National Portrait Gallery, London, in 1956 (NPG, personal communication). Laurence had made a chalk portrait of CD in 1853 and a crayon drawing may have been done at around the same time (see [Shipley and Simpson eds.] 1909). The chalk portrait is reproduced in Correspondence vol. 5, facing p. 128 (see also ibid., letter to J. D. Hooker, 27 May [1855]).
3
CD had several cartes de visite made by the firm of Elliot & Fry between 1869 and 1881.
4
Erasmus probably refers to a large portrait photograph, but none has been identified. No other portrait of CD by Laurence has been identified.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10794,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10794