Charles Dickens (1812–1870)

William Powell Frith's posthumous portrait of 'Charles Dickens (1812-1870)' (1886) depicted England's most beloved Victorian novelist — Frith had been acquainted with Dickens, and his portrait fifteen years after the novelist's death drew on his personal memory and on the photographic and painted record of Dickens's appearance. Frith was the most popular Victorian painter of social panoramas ('Ramsgate Sands', 'Derby Day', 'The Railway Station'), and his Dickens portrait connected his practice to the literary world whose social observation paralleled his own.

Frith renders Dickens with the combination of documentary accuracy (using photographic and portrait records as references) and psychological engagement appropriate to a commemorative portrait of a recently deceased great man. His handling of the novelist's distinctive features — the intense eyes, the expressive face, the literary man's bearing — reflects his knowledge of Dickens's appearance and his understanding of the cultural significance of the portrait commission.