(Darwin, Charles) | The earliest obtainable photographic portrait

(Darwin, Charles)

Seated portrait of Charles Darwin. [London]: Maull and Polyblank, [1855]

Albumen print (approximately 197 x 147 mm) with arched top, on the original gilt lithograph mount, captioned "Charles Darwin" in pencil at and with imprint printed at foot; some minor spotting, very minor fingersoiling to mount.

The earliest obtainable photograph of Charles Darwin. This portrait was the only obtainable photograph of Darwin printed before On the Origin of Species.

The naturalist sat for only one daguerreotype—a portrait with his son William made in 1842. "Darwin waited ten years before he sat for his next photograph. By 1853, Darwin’s life as a naturalist was well established, and he was gaining in popularity thanks to his account of his journey on the Beagle and his two volumes of Journal of Researches that resulted from that five-year voyage. The photographers Maull and Polyblank (later known as Maull and Fox) operated a studio in London and made at least four different exposures of Darwin between 1853 and 1857" ("Darwin's Photographic Portraits"). The present photograph was made as part of Maull and Polyblank's "Literary and Scientific Portrait Club," a series of portraits of famous Victorians.

Darwin was not pleased with the image, as revealed in a 27 May 1855 letter to Joseph Dalton Hooker: "You ask about my Photograph; I have been done at the Club; but if I really have as bad an expression, as my photograph gives me, how I can have one single friend is surprising" (Darwin Correspondence Project, letter 1688). Indeed, his displeasure persisted for a number of years; in an 1860 letter to Hooker, he references the same portrait and writes, "Heaven-sake oblige me & burn that now hanging up in your room. It makes me look atrociously wicked" (letter 3024). 

Charles Darwin is one of the most recognizable figures of the nineteenth century. His striking appearance captured the imagination of photographers, most notably Julia Margaret Cameron, whose portraits of the scientist are now iconic (see lot 1030). Darwin himself was keenly interested in photography: his collaboration with Oscar Rejlander (see lot 1032) was indispensable to The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals; he encouraged his sons to take up the art in their childhoods; and he commissioned a number of self-portraits throughout his life. According to the Darwin biographer Janet Browne, the wealthy naturalist’s penchant for commissioning photographic portraits, and their widespread commercial distribution, helped to cement the lasting connection between Darwin and the theory of evolution in popular thought (see lot 1025).

REFERENCE:

"Darwin's Photographic Portraits," Darwin Correspondence Project; ibid., letters 1688, 3024