Catherine Dickens (1815–1879)

Daniel Maclise painted Catherine Dickens around 1847, a portrait of the wife of Charles Dickens who was then at the height of his fame. Maclise was a close friend of Dickens throughout the 1830s and 1840s, moving in the same literary and artistic social world and producing several portraits of the novelist and his family. Catherine's portrait shows Maclise's characteristic combination of direct physiognomic observation and the warm, somewhat idealized treatment of female subjects appropriate to the period's portrait conventions. The painting documents a domestic relationship and social friendship that would end in the Dickenses' separation in 1858.

Maclise renders Catherine Dickens with gentle warmth and careful attention to her features, using a restrained palette appropriate to a private domestic portrait. The intimate composition reflects the personal friendship between artist and subject.