Thackeray was striking in appearance, being over six feet in height and broad in proportion. He was erect in his gait and stalwart in bearing. His countenance was very expressive and capable of much dignity, and his peculiarly sweet smile, combined with a great gentleness of voice and manner, particularly endeared him to children. “Grand and stern and silent,” wrote Jerrold of him in later years, “a mighty form crowned with a massive, snow-haired head.”

Among the portraits of Thackeray in early manhood is the painting by Frank Stone, executed in 1836 about the time of his marriage with Miss Shawe. This picture has never been engraved.

In 1832 and 1833 Maclise made two beautiful drawings of Thackeray from life, depicting him as a fashionably dressed young man, seated in a nÉglige attitude, displaying a massive eyeglass. These are now in the Garrick Club. Some years later the same artist made another delicately pencilled sketch, which Thackeray himself very skilfully copied.

Of the various portraits by Samuel Laurence, the one of greatest interest is perhaps the chalk drawing executed in 1853 and here reproduced as a frontispiece.

Charlotte BrontË, when she first saw this portrait, exclaimed, “And there came up a lion out of Judah.” Later she wrote: “My father stood for a quarter of an hour this morning examining the great man’s picture. The conclusion of his survey was that he thought it a puzzling head; if he had known nothing previously of the original’s character, he could not have read it in his features. I wonder at this. To me the broad brow seems to express intellect. Certain lines about the nose and cheek betray the satirist and cynic; the mouth indicates a child-like simplicity, perhaps even a degree of irresoluteness, inconsistency—weakness, in short, but a weakness not unamiable.”

A replica of the painting by the same artist in the National Portrait Gallery was presented by Thackeray to Sir Frederick Pollock, and remained for many years in the possession of the Dowager Lady Pollock.

In the National Portrait Gallery is also a bust modelled in terra-cotta by Sir Edgar Boehm from the original plaster mould by Joseph Durham, A.R.A., which was presented to the Garrick Club. And the same sculptor executed in 1860 a statuette for which Thackeray when in Paris gave only two short sittings of half an hour’s duration. “The eminent sculptor,” writes Mr. F. G. Kitton in the Magazine of Art, “even in that space of time succeeded in all but completing one of the most successful portraits of his subject ever attempted.” “The work of Sir John Millais possesses exceptional interest,” continues the same writer, “and especially may this be said of a full-length delineation by that master-hand of his famous literary contemporary. Although but a slight memory-sketch, it is very characteristic of the man, and the portraiture so very life-like and true that Sir Edgar Boehm derived from it considerable assistance when completing his excellent statuette of the novelist.”

The posthumous portrait of Thackeray painted by Sir John Gilbert, R.A., was amongst those presented to the Garrick Club. It represents the novelist with long white hair and spectacles seated at a small table on which tea-things are displayed. In the background appears Stanfield’s picture of a Dutch vessel, which may still be seen in one of the Club apartments.

The pencil drawing taken from the life by Richard Doyle, which is now in the British Museum, is an interesting and very characteristic sketch of the novelist.

The portrait of Thackeray by Sir John E. Millais, P.R.A., which appears on page 23, is in the possession of Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, and is reproduced by her kind permission.